Managing Parental Leave (Yours or Someone Else’s)

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: You’re listening to Women at Work, from Harvard Business Review. I’m Sarah Green Carmichael.

NICOLE TORRES: I’m Nicole Torres.

AMY BERNSTEIN: I’m Amy Bernstein. The U.S. is the only industrialized country that doesn’t guarantee new mothers paid time off. Whether you get parental leave and how much time you get is totally up to the company. You’re lucky if you get six weeks, maybe eight.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: And as a result, we women often end up using our political capital to advocate for paid leave for ourselves, or our companies, woman by woman and company by company, over and over again.

NICOLE TORRES: So, paid parental leave is very important. It’s important for the health and wellbeing of new babies and their parents. For instance, women are more likely to go back to work and they’re less likely to be depressed later in life.

AMY BERNSTEIN: In this episode we’ll talk about how to manage parental leaves, yours or someone else’s, no matter how much time you have off.

DAISY WADEMAN DOWLING: So, the most common question I get is, how is this all going to work?

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: But first, we wanted to know what our lives might be like if women in the U.S. had access to longer paid leaves. So, I went looking for companies that had unusually generous paid leave policies. And I was really impressed by what the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation offers their fulltime staff.

NICOLE TORRES: So, we’re starting with a story about a woman who works there in the D.C. office. I went to her house to talk to her about her experience with the foundation’s parental leave program. You’ll hear her little girl, Cordelia, in the background.

[CHILD SPEAKING]

MAEVE WARD: OK. Are you putting spit in my hair? What’s happening right now?

NICOLE TORRES: Maeve Ward is sitting on the floor of her living room with her 2-year-old daughter, Cordelia. They’re surrounded by sticker books and markers, but right now Cordelia just wants to play with her mom’s hair.

MAEVE WARD: Are you coloring in my hair? Or, are you rubbing applesauce in my hair? That’s what happened. She’s rubbing applesauce in my hair.

NICOLE TORRES: Maeve is used to sticky fingers. She has three kids. When her boys were a few months old, she would get dressed to go to work and then put her bathrobe back on over her outfit to protect her clothes until she got to the car.

MAEVE WARD: Because I would inevitably have some sort of spit up, or baby food puree, or snot on my shoulder before I got to work.

NICOLE TORRES: But with Cordelia, Maeve’s experience was different. That’s because right before Cordelia was born, Maeve’s employer, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, extended its parental leave policy for fulltime employees from 12 weeks fully paid to 52.

MAEVE WARD: I had the opportunity to take a year and stay at home as a mother without any of the risks or sacrifices that usually come with that for other women. I also didn’t need to worry about what I would do when that year was up, when my time as a stay-at-home mom was up. I knew that I had a job to go back to.

NICOLE TORRES: OK. So, you find out that you can take up to a year of leave instead of six months. Did you know right away that you wanted to do that? What was your thought process like?

MAEVE WARD: I actually took a really long time to decide whether I wanted to take the full year, probably a frustrating amount of time for my manager. A year is just a very long time, and I never imagined myself as a stay-at-home mother. And the difference between three months, which I took with my first two children, six months that I was planning to take, and a full year felt really felt dramatic.

NICOLE TORRES: In the end, she decided to take the whole year, for a couple of reasons.

MAEVE WARD: I didn’t think I’d ever get a chance like that again. I wanted to experience it. I knew that I could always go back sooner if I chose to. And I know that this sounds self-aggrandizing, but I felt some responsibility to take a full year for all of the other women in the office, especially the younger women. As one of the first people who was eligible for leave, if I didn’t take it, it would be really hard for other women or other men to decide to take the leave.

NICOLE TORRES: The Gates Foundation says that as of March, 2018, 222 parents have taken advantage of its leave program. 71% have been women, and 29% have been men. Which is pretty close to the gender breakdown of who works there.

What were some of the concerns you had — aside from the amount of time that it was — what were some concerns you had about stepping away from your work for a year?

MAEVE WARD: Yeah, when you’re only out for a couple weeks, or a couple of months you can put projects on hold. When you’re out for a year, that’s not an option. You can’t stop work for a year. So, I was worried about the work continuing while I was gone. The first few weeks after I had Cordelia, I would check my email a couple of times a week, which turned out to be a terrible idea. Either I would see a response from one of the women who was doing my work, and I would say, oh that’s not how I would respond. That’s terrible. No, don’t do it that way. Or, I would read it and say, oh no, that’s really smart. They’re not going to miss me at all while I’m gone. And neither of those were healthy for me, or helpful to them. So, eventually I just put my phone away. I put the computer away and I really went all in on being home and being present for that year.

NICOLE TORRES: And she wasn’t just present for baby Cordelia.

MAEVE WARD: I, at the time I had a 6-year-old and an 8-year-old, and I think in some ways the time I had may have meant more to them because they were aware that I was there. Cordelia certainly appreciated me feeding her and having her diaper changed and I wore her in a wrap most of the time, just because I could carry her around. But my sons were really aware that I was there. So, it was really incredible to have that time with them and for them to know that I was available.

NICOLE TORRES: Maeve made herself available to her colleagues too. When she thought that she’d only have six months of leave with Cordelia, she was planning to completely disconnect from work. But with a year, she decided that she could still help her team with some goal planning.

MAEVE WARD: And when you take a full year off, spending a day or two or three over the course of the year going to a retreat with the team didn’t feel like much of a sacrifice.

NICOLE TORRES: A month before her leave was over, Maeve put Cordelia in daycare so she could start shifting back into work mode.

MAEVE WARD: I set up dozens of lunches and dozens of coffees and asked everyone on my team to send me all the things they’ve been working on over the last year to read. And it was really just more than I needed to do.

NICOLE TORRES: Because while Maeve was on leave, two women, one an employee and one a consultant, had taken on most of her work. They had been putting together project and investment briefs for her, and once she was back in the office, they helped her gradually return to her role. She says they were key to her transition back to work. But even with all their support, Maeve says going back was still tricky.

MAEVE WARD: Just getting back into the working environment, I can remember sitting in one meeting and people were using all kinds of jargon, organizational jargon about scaffolding and building guardrails and boiling things down. And that was just not a way that my mind had worked in a while. So, getting back to that was frustrating, but I got there. I also had to get people used to putting me back on an email. When you’re out for a year, people stop copying you. They stop sending you email. They stop trying to keep you in the loop. So, I had to remind everyone that I was back and it was time to put me back in the loop. It was time to invite me to that meeting. And that took some real proactive outreach on my part.

NICOLE TORRES: So, 52 weeks paid parental leave with plenty of coverage and a gradual return to work. I asked Maeve, is this the dream?

MAEVE WARD: In retrospect it was the dream for me. I wouldn’t have told you ahead of time that that was the dream. I would have said that that was probably too long.

CORDELIA: Hey, I want to see.

MAEVE WARD: And it may not be the dream for every women. One of the most incredible things is that this is a choice. Women at the Gates Foundation can choose to take three months or six months or a full year. And it’s always still a choice. So, for me it turned into the dream. It may not be perfect for everyone, but that’s OK too.

AMY BERNSTEIN: That was a great interview and it sounded like a lot of fun.

NICOLE TORRES: It was really fun. Maeve and Cordelia were super welcoming. I think we caught them right before they were about to take a trip. So, Cordelia was offering me all kinds of snacks that they had packed away. And then after she and I blew bubbles outside. It was really nice.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Oh, a perfect playdate.

NICOLE TORRES: It was. It was a nice playdate. Just an update on Maeve. So, while her manager is taking her leave, she is stepping into her manager’s role, and they call it a stretch role. She doesn’t get her managers salary, but she gets a 10% bonus for doing the stretch role assignment.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: That’s one of the things I think is so great about parental leave, it’s not as often talked about, is that in an organization where you don’t really know what your colleagues do, you don’t really know what it’s like to be your boss, when someone’s on leave you really have an opportunity to learn, which is awesome for the person filling in and also just good for the organization as a whole. I was in that position when one of my bosses took parental leave, and I learned so much while she was away. I was so glad when she came back. [LAUGHTER] But I also really learned a lot about the stuff she did that I had no insight into before.

NICOLE TORRES: Yeah. It seems like a good opportunity to grow also and develop, at least experientially in a company.

AMY BERNSTEIN: And that’s really the only way to learn to be a boss is to be a boss. Right?

NICOLE TORRES: Yeah. So, most of what we talked about was the Gates Foundation’s parental leave program. But it also became clear that parental leave is super important, but companies shouldn’t just stop there. Maeve said what also made a difference to her and her childcare is that the Gates Foundation also offers unlimited vacation time.

MAEVE WARD: And that allows me to take time away from work to be with my children sometimes when they need it. A lot of women take unpaid time off if a child gets sick or if a child needs to go to the doctor, or even just needs a day with their parent.

NICOLE TORRES: And they also have a backup daycare. And that just makes a big difference to making being a good parent and being a good employee manageable.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: It’s so interesting to hear what they’re doing, and on the one hand it’s so inventive and innovative and groundbreaking. And it also makes me so angry that most companies in the U.S. don’t offer anything like this. I mean I think only 14% of women in the U.S. have access to any paid leave at all. At all. And so, I really love hearing what Maeve’s experience was like and what it might be like in a kind of different world, but I just more women had access to this kind of stuff.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Yeah, and this is a pretty rare benefit, set of benefits, and I think about all the women who aren’t getting any benefits, who are working 34 hours a week so they don’t have to get benefits, that sort of thing.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: Yeah, I think one of the things that struck me as we were putting together this episode and as I was kind of doing research into this topic, was just we have this kind of implicit assumption that paid leave is something that women kind of ask for, in some case apologetically, like oh, it’s so inconvenient for my coworkers or for the company, but maybe I could have this thing. That’s how I’ve often thought of it, but when I was doing the research it really made it clear that there’s economic benefits to paid leave for men and for women and birth parents and adoptive parents, there were huge benefits to the baby and then there were also tons of benefits to the companies. I mean, enough companies offer this now that we can do research on them and kind of see how it affects them. And I think something like 87% of companies that offer paid leave — this was a study in California, where paid leave is required — said it cost them nothing. It cost them nothing to offer paid leave. Maybe before the law was passed they were like, oh this is going to be too expensive, but actually there’s really good benefits that paid leave brings to employers through reduced turnover, and high morale. And I was not necessarily expecting to find that. I was kind of like, oh this is a moral thing that companies should do because it’s the right thing to do. But then when I looked into it, it was like oh, actually there’s a ton of bottom-line benefits here too.

AMY BERNSTEIN: And it shouldn’t be viewed as an indulgence.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: Yeah.

NICOLE TORRES: The other thing that’s really interesting is that the men at the Gates Foundation who are taking advantage of this policy, most of them were taking the full year off. And that seems pretty crucial to making a program like this work. It’s not just falling on women. They’re not the ones expected to stay home and do all the childcare. Men are also doing their share it seems.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: Yes, and this is something that really has been borne out by some of the research I’ve seen as well. Especially in the Nordic countries where yearlong leaves are often offered. What you see is when women take advantage of that policy and men don’t, you don’t actually see women advancing. You don’t get some of the benefits of having a paid leave because women are still penalized. But if men start taking it, suddenly then you do see more gender parity and you see men being more involved in the lives of their children. Because those patterns that are established early on in a baby’s life, they hold until the kid moves out of the house and maybe even beyond. And I think there’s also an interesting legal risk thing here for companies to think about too. So, the Gates Foundation offers this benefit to both men and women, which is crucial. Because if they didn’t it could be illegal gender discrimination. And I am really shocked that more companies have not caught onto this yet. And companies are being sued and having to change their policies. So, it’s something that if I worked in an HR department or a legal department at a big company, I would definitely be thinking about.

NICOLE TORRES: So, another thing I talked to Maeve about is one of the biggest issues for women who are returning to work after being on leave and that’s having the space and time to pump. So, I asked Maeve what it was like not having to deal with all of that.

MAEVE WARD: So, at the Foundation we have mother’s rooms, or health rooms, where women could go and use them to pump. But not having to pump was just the, it sounds insignificant, but it was one of the most incredible things about having a year. With my first two kids, I was just terrible at pumping. I just never was able to produce the milk with the pump that I could when I was breast feeding. So, I gave up breast feeding with the two of them entirely by six months because I just couldn’t pump enough at work. But with Cordelia I was with her all the time and I was able to nurse her, so I was able to breast feed her for almost the full 12 months.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: One of the things that really strikes me about that is so often in these length-of-leave discussions we end up talking about sort of what returning to work is like for the mother and we sort of focus on that, but we ignore that there’s a real health issue here for mother and baby that are often overlooked. So, about one in four women in the U.S. return to work within two weeks of giving birth. That is not enough time to heal. That’s definitely not enough time to get into any kind of routine. And so, when I heard Maeve talk about that I was just blown away. When you think about the amount of time and effort, and stress and money, frankly, that goes into pumping and keeping milk cool, and shipping milk home if you’re on a business trip and all this stuff, it’s a lot, and to not have to deal with that is huge.

NICOLE TORRES: Yes.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: One of the other pieces of research that just stuck out to me was that when women have access to paid leave, it raises the probability that mother’s will not only return to work, which is sort of obvious. I mean it didn’t surprise me, but what surprised me was that they work more hours and they also earn higher wages. So, it kind of lets them continue on their upward trajectory that they were on before they had a kid, which I think is really, really important.

AMY BERNSTEIN: I mean it really just sounds like the benefits outweigh the cost. There’s no question here.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: Yes, which is why it makes me confused as to why we are still having this discussion and are the only country besides Papua New Guinea and Lesotho that does not have a paid leave.

NICOLE TORRES: Wow.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Wow, we have to continue having this discussion until we change it.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: Yeah, we’ll keep airing this podcast until we have it.

[MUSIC]

AMY BERNSTEIN: Someone who knows all about managing parental leave is Daisy Dowling.

NICOLE TORRES: Daisy’s a mother of two and the founder and CEO of Workparent, which is a consulting firm that advises organizations and working parents.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: And she’s here to give us a kind of professional’s guide to going on leave, coming back, or managing someone who is.

AMY BERNSTEIN: We started by asking her how to tell the people you work with that you’re pregnant. Who should you tell first and when? And how do you tell the rest of your colleagues?

DAISY WADEMAN DOWLING: So, this is one of the really, really exciting opportunity points in working parenthood. People think about the announcement with a little bit of dread or concern, or confusion. When do I do this? How do I do this? This is actually a great way — handling this announcement well — is a great way to set yourself up as a working parent later. And by that I mean you get to establish from the very first day that people know that you’re going to be a working parent, how you’re going to handle things, what you want from working parenthood and you get too really, really establish yourself as a working parent professional. So, as soon you are comfortable sharing this news with somebody — and by that I mean medically, socially, practically, thinking about all those things — when you are ready to tell people that you are expectant, the first person that you need to speak to is your boss. There is a very excited tendency, particularly amongst first-time parents, to think about telling trusted work colleagues or friends, or other people in the office, but you have to remember that your manager is the person who really is there to oversee and help steward your career. You’re working for them. They’re evaluating you. And in my view you really owe that person the first conversation. And then you can start telling other people around that. But if they hear about it from other people or through the grapevine, it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, but it doesn’t establish that level of upfront trust and natural honest dialogue. So, talk to your boss first. When you do talk to your boss, be careful about the words that you use. Because you want to do a couple of things. You want to set a tone, and you want to open the door to future conversation. So, if I go in, if I’m expectant and I go in and I say to my boss, Mary, I have some really exciting news, and I hope you’re going to be excited for me. I’m expecting my first child in March, and my partner and I are over the moon about this. Now, I know there are probably a lot of questions that we both are going to have about how this is going to work around the leave that I’ll be able to take, around how my projects and clients will be covered while I’m gone, around what this will look like when I come back. We will talk about all of those in due time, and I’m sure that we’ll come to a great solution on all of them together. But for right now I just wanted to share that news with you and let you know that we can follow up on those other issues later on. And then stop the conversation. You don’t have to establish everything that needs to happen in the future in the first five minutes post announcement of your pregnancy or adoption. You are just sharing that piece of news. But you are also letting them know that you are in problem-solving mode, that you’re committed to making this work, and that you expect them to be a partner to you in that process.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: What if you are either interviewing for a new job or have just started a relatively new job and you find yourself in this happy situation?

DAISY WADEMAN DOWLING: Yeah, I wouldn’t change that advice too much. I think you want to be clear about your commitment to the organization. So, if you are interviewing and you need to disclose during the process of interviewing that you’re expecting, I would treat it as a piece of information that you want to share, but add in some statements, or add in part of the conversation that I’m really excited about this role. The fact that I’m expecting does not from my perspective change my desire and my excitement about coming to work for you. I know I can still bring you this value, all the things that we’ve talked about, my experience and what I have to offer are still there. I would as everybody in your organization has, take a leave, but that would be a brief period of time, and then I’d be excited on working on this client project, or starting this new program or initiative for you, et cetera. So, change it back into a business conversation. I think a lot of people go into those types of conversations, where they have to share news with somebody they may not know very well, with a lot of apprehension. Like oh, they’re going to think the worst of me, or this is going to come as a negative surprise, or whatever. Most of the clients I advise who have been in that situation expect to be caught out, or have the conversation turn sour, are usually really pleasantly surprised. Most people in the workplace actually are parents. The majority of people are working parents themselves. They’ve been through this. They see this. They deal with it all the time. They may have dealt with it themselves. So, assume that there will be positive reception to it. And again, really focus on what you have to offer as opposed to what you think they may think that you’re taking away.

NICOLE TORRES: Maeve said that for her, taking 52 weeks of maternity leave turned out to be the dream. You talk to a lot of mothers. Where do you think they would fall on that?

DAISY WADEMAN DOWLING: I think it worked extremely well for Maeve, for a lot of different reasons, and I’m delighted that she had that opportunity. And I think having 52 weeks, a full year of paid leave, would be the dream for so many mothers. But I think mothers come with infinite varieties of personal needs, of professional goals, of levels of ambition, of enjoyment of their work. We’re all different. We’re all wired differently and we’re all in different circumstances. And so, while many people may say, 52 weeks, a whole year, that yes, that is my dream. I get to really be at home, be engaged. Effectively be a stay at home parent, but with pay for that year. And they would be excited, just so happy for it. For other people it would be a godsend. Maybe they need that time for health reasons or for other very practical family reasons. But honestly, for a lot of the people who I work with and advise, 52 weeks would not be the dream. Maybe they really enjoy their work and they don’t want to be out of it for that long. Maybe they’re extremely extroverted and they really, really love being around other intelligent, motivated adults. They love being around their colleagues. Maybe they just like the discipline and routine of work. Maybe they feel that they would be losing opportunities, even if they had a workplace that endorsed having that amount of time off and compensated them for it. They may feel like, maybe my clients might move away from me. Maybe I wouldn’t get first dibs on projects I wanted. They may just not want to be away from their job for that long a period of time. And I think that really important thing here for women to think about is to respect their own needs and their own wiring. Certain organizations may be able to offer very, very long leaves. But what we should be focusing on and what individuals I think should be focusing on is embracing their own choices and thinking of them that way. I may be offered 52 weeks of leave; that may be right for me. I may choose to approach my maternity leave in a different way.

AMY BERNSTEIN: In Maeve’s story, it took her a while to figure out how much time she would really take off. A year was going to be such a long time. What should a woman ask herself when she’s trying to figure that out for herself? Assuming she has the flexibility.

DAISY WADEMAN DOWLING: Yeah. You have to ask yourself what you want professionally and how things are working and what you want personally. So, from a professional standpoint I would encourage people, and this would be many, many different questions, but I would encourage people to think about things like what might be the tradeoffs for me if I take more time off? Am I going to feel more motivated or less motivated when I get back to work if I’m out for a longer period of time? Are there certain projects coming up that I really want to get on that I may not have the opportunity to if I take another three, four, five months out of the office. Am I coming up to a big promotion point? I worked with a woman recently who’s in a professional services organization. And she was coming up to one of these great big milestone promotions that happen in that type of company. And she wanted to take a longer leave. She could have taken a longer leave, but frankly, she was just really excited being up for promotion, under consideration. She wanted to be in the mix when that was happening and when those decisions and announcements were going to be made. Because it was a once-in-a-career type of opportunity for her. So, I think you have to think holistically about what you might be giving up, short term and long term, and how you feel about that in terms of work. And then just very practically on the home front, what would your care arrangement be like in either direction? How would you feel about being back at work earlier and away from the baby? What benefit would it give you to spend more time at home? Again, for a lot of women, I think there’s a little bit of a pressure or an orthodoxy. We are supposed to feel longer leaves are inherently better. And again, for some many women they can be and it’s great if you have the opportunity or the access to one. But a lot of women who I work with frankly say, 52 weeks at home with a baby? Arg. Wow, that’s going to be hard. Boy, get me back to the office please. So, I think it’s taking stock personally and professionally and then figuring out what’s going to be the right decision for you? Not the quote unquote right decision. Because that doesn’t exist. But right decision for you.

NICOLE TORRES: What if you’re on maternity leave and you start thinking that you want to go back to work sooner than you’d initially planned for?

DAISY WADEMAN DOWLING: Yes, so I see this happen all the time and again, when women talk to me about it they usually talk in a very hesitant way. So, they’ll say, it’s been eight weeks. I’m really itching to get back to the office. I miss it. I need the routine. The baby’s doing well. I still want to spend a lot of time with him or her, but I really want to be back to the workplace. I think the things to think about there are twofold. One is personal and professional choices and what works for you. But two, to think about a point in time. Time off is a very, very valuable thing. You don’t get that much of it. And nobody says that when you were on maternity leave that you need to spend 24 hours a day with the baby. I have seen some clients do really interesting things professionally in small bites when they’re on maternity leave. Maybe they get to go to an industry conference that they normally don’t get to go to because they don’t have the time when they’re in the office working fulltime. Or, they write an article for a trade publication and that’s something that they’d never have the opportunity to do when they’re so busy at the office. But it’s something that they can do to engage with their professional selves and maybe with our colleagues a bit. But still get to enjoy that precious, precious leave time. Because once you give that leave time up, it’s gone. It’s not coming back. It’s not something that you can find again so easily. So, that’s one important thing. The other thing is to be careful about the messages that you’re sending at work. And this is where I think individual choices spill over into leadership choices. I may really, really desperately want to be back at the office after six weeks at home and let’s say I get 12 weeks off, but I really want to be back after six. That might work for me personally. It may be where my head is at, but just be careful because a lot of the other younger women or women who may be planning families or want that in their future, might see you back at work after six weeks and misinterpret that as you’re having been pressured to come back, or that the profession, or that the company really isn’t setup to support the leaves that are actually offered. And I think you want to be careful about the fact that a lot of eyes actually are on you when you take maternity leave. People want to know how is this going to work. And there’s sort of an excited, they’re rooting for you, but in an excited way they’re looking and saying, that could be me. And what’s this going to be like? And if you’re back so quickly it could be a little tougher, maybe even disheartening for others. So, I think you want to weigh all those factors.

NICOLE TORRES: What about if you are on maternity leave and you are for whatever reason actually feeling like you need more time, is there a realistic way to negotiate that, at that point?

DAISY WADEMAN DOWLING: There are realistic ways to negotiate, but the operative word in that sentence is negotiate. Saying, I need more time is just not as compelling a statement as if I’m given another two weeks to lock down my care arrangement, it means that I’m going to come back to work for you, not distracted, really on point and ready to be back in the game. That’s a much more compelling way to ask for that extra couple of weeks off. It sounds like a small semantic difference, but I think the way it lands with the person who has the power to either grant you, or not grant you, that time is going to be really big.

AMY BERNSTEIN: So, when you’re thinking about coming back, the advice we give on HBR.org, over and over again, is make a plan. What factors should you consider when you’re making a plan?

DAISY WADEMAN DOWLING: So, here is where I encourage women to get as tactical as possible. And when I work with expectant moms or ones who are just about to transition back into the workforce, I think they’re surprised by how much I push them to think about the nitty gritty, about how things actually work. When people say a plan, they’re used to thinking about business plans, which are sort of 10 to 30,000 foot level views of what you want to accomplish over time and sort of general trends and how things should be approached, whereas an maternity leave return plan should be about things as tactical as how long it takes you to get dressed in the morning. So, returning to work is going to be hard. It’s going to be hard emotionally. It’s a big transition. Going back you’re going to be balancing two new things. It’s almost like starting a whole new job. You’re starting a new set of responsibilities that you haven’t had before. So, when I encourage people to plan, I don’t just talk to them about things like their care arrangement, but literally about how their day is going to unfurl. One of the specific assignments that I love to give people is to a week to 10 days before they return to work, to have a rehearsal day. To get up in the morning, get themselves ready as if they’re going to the office, get the baby ready for drop off at day care. Get in the car, or get on the bus. Do the drop off. Get themselves to work. Practice it as if you are actually going through and you’re going to go up to your office and sit down at your desk and start working. And see how things go. Do things take you more time than you thought? Does it feel natural? Where were some of the potential breakpoints? What happens if you’re late at drop off? Are there quicker ways to get to work? All those little, little things, if you don’t rehearse them, if you don’t practice them, they can boil up to things that are major distractions or even deal breakers, when you actually do go back to work. So, control the controllable and think about your time, your schedule, what the baby needs. What’s in the diaper bag? All those sorts of things. And I typically give new working moms, or ones who are returning, a checklist of items and it’s many, many, many items to think about, just so that they can eliminate all the little potential nitty-gritty distractions that might weigh on them when they’ve got bigger fish to fry. This is also where I’m going to throw in a piece of advice about the actual return. No employee of any organization ever should return from a parental leave except, but on a Thursday or Friday.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Interesting.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: That’s a great tip.

DAISY WADEMAN DOWLING: It is an overwhelming transition back, and if you make it on a Monday, the stretch of fairway between you and Friday afternoon is just going to look like from here to forever. Whereas if you come back in on a Thursday or a Friday morning, you sort of put your coat down, you check some emails, you walk around the office, you tell people, oh hey, I’m back. You don’t really do any work during those two days. You just get back to being, used to being at work and to doing the care handoff and the evening routine and you sort of use those as little rehearsal days. And then Monday you come back thinking, I can do this. Another technique that I’ve seen people do is to tell people, I’m coming back on May 15. But to actually come back on May 13. Because that lets them come back, go through emails, read through documents, plan their calendar, do other things. People don’t really know they’re in the office, maybe. It depends how your office seating plan is and how visible you are and things like that, but it gives you a buffer time that is just about sort of getting yourself together.

AMY BERNSTEIN: It’s a soft launch.

DAISY WADEMAN DOWLING: Exactly. And then on May 15, you’re back at it. The more gradual transitions are easier transitions. And so, think ahead to that time.

NICOLE TORRES: And then another thing to think about while you’re planning leave, or maybe while you’re on leave is whether you should come back to work fulltime, or try part time. How do you help women make those decisions?

DAISY WADEMAN DOWLING: I think that’s very hard to think about before you tried to come back as you were. So, when I counsel women on this, I usually ask them some questions about what type of professional they have always been. What kind of hours they’ve worked. What kind of energy and excitement they have about the job. What their long-range ambitions have been. Because I want them to carry the professional self that they have always been, that’s true and authentic and unique to them, and I want them to bring as much as possible of that into their working motherhood. Motherhood changes a lot of things in any of us. I have a 4-year-old and a 6-year-old. Any of us who are working moms will tell you that it changes so much in your life. But what it won’t change is the sort of essence of you and what you really like about your work and some of your long-range goals and dreams for your career, honestly. So, I think if you are in informed by that and you go back to work, give or take in the same schedule that you had before, it will let you see if that’s feasible. It lets you make a decision from a point of continuity as opposed to saying while you’re on leave and you haven’t even gone back and sort of tried the working mom thing, to say oh no, no, no, I know it’s not going to be possible. I should just go back three days a week. I think frankly that’s a mistake because it may be very feasible and it may be very happy to be back in the exact same schedule you were, as long as you plan around that. Motherhood is a journey. It’s not a destination. And working parenthood is certainly a journey. Make decisions as you get the information to make them with, as opposed to preemptively saying, well, everybody else in the office who has kids works three days a week and I should too. Or, I know this is going to be hard so, let me take a reduced schedule. Don’t shortchange yourself.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: What about taking back over the key projects you were working on? I mean, and maybe we should break this into two parts. How do you kind of set yourself up to delegate all that stuff before you head out and then when you’re coming back, how do you take it back over?

DAISY WADEMAN DOWLING: Yeah. So, there’s two questions, but they’re important to address up front. So, as you think about stepping out of the office, I’m a really big advocate of creating as much clarity as possible about who’s going to do what, and about what exactly needs to be done. So, when you are leaving, make certain that the delegation plan or the coverage plan is really, really clear. Not just generally who’s going to be touching your projects, but exactly what they’re going to need to do. What weekly reports they’ll need to produce, what documents they’ll have to be editing, how they’re going to update your boss, or your boss’s boss on the work that’s being done. All of those things that you would think about in the context of your own job, you have to think about somebody else picking up and doing to a pretty high degree of quality while you’re out. It may only be 12 weeks. You may be able to sort of stagger through, but the more clarity and the more direction you can give people, the better. I’m also a big believer in having that on a piece of paper. And I don’t mean that for sort of risk management reasons or legal reasons of any kind. But simply for clarity. So, if you can sit down with the people who are covering your projects and say, here’s a list of the things that I usually do and that are going to need to be covered, that’s a much more effective conversation than just sort of generally talking to them about the projects. And if you can sit down with your manager and say, here’s who’s doing what while I’m gone, it looks good on you, but it also makes certain that there’s not going to be any snafus or lack of clarity while you’re out. I think part of those conversations too, upfront before you leave, you have to have a conversation about how things will be transitioned back. And that conversation might be to say, OK, in the two weeks after I return back from leave we can work side by side on this project so I can reabsorb all the details and make certain that I’m picking this back up in a graceful way. Or, it might be while I’m out on the six-month leave, I’ll join you once a month for an update meeting or call just to get a sense of what’s going on in these projects. So, when I come back I can really hit the ground running. You have to forward-plan and again, be very operational about what it is going to look like and whose going to do what while you’re gone, and then how you’re going to take control back. The No. 1 frustration, business frustration, I hear from working moms, once they go back to the office, beyond just it’s difficult to find balance and they feel like they’ve got a long, long, long to do list, beyond that is I’m having difficulty getting my project back, or being able to take ownership of them again, or feel like other people are taking them away. And that’s what you want to try and avoid.

AMY BERNSTEIN: So, Daisy, you come back from leave, and what conversations should you have with your teammates who have been doing your work, who took on the work that you were doing when you went on leave?

DAISY WADEMAN DOWLING: There are two different narratives that you need to have when you come back from leave. One is for those people who have been covering for you and again, this should start before you go on leave. I think an atmosphere of directness, this is their responsibility while you’re away, but gratitude, acknowledging that that person may be working a little bit extra, a little bit more to have helped cover for you. There may not be resentment, although there may be resentment too. But I think what you want to do is to convey to people that, I appreciate that you’re on my team, and I want you to know that I’m on your team too. Whether that is helping somebody who’s more junior to you who helped cover for you, helping mentor them, helping them get ready for the next promotion point. Think about ways to try and return the favor and to be a collaborator in the other direction, even though you feel like you’ve got a lot going on. I think that will win you a lot of points and put you in good stead with people. I think praising them, saying, this was a job well done. It may not have been done in exactly the way you would have done it, or perfectly, but still saying this was great and I’ve told my manager or your manager that you did great work here. I really appreciate it. So, I think going in with that approach with a storyline is imperative. Because if you just come in and just say OK, yeah, let me grab that project back, you’re shortchanging yourself. You’re not going to create the image of yourself as a really collaborative, classy professional that you are. The other narrative that you have to have with your manager, manager’s manager, all the way up the chain with colleagues, everybody, is about your being back. If you come back into the workplace after 12 weeks and you slink back to your office and hunch over your emails, it sends a very ambiguous message. What you want to do is come back and say, in one line or two, it’s so great to be back. The next couple of weeks and months may be daunting, as every working parent knows, I’m going to have to roll with a lot of punches here, but I’m excited to be here. It’s good to see all of you, and I’m going to be picking up right away on project X, Y, Z, which I think we can make a lot of progress on — and then start talking about project X, Y, Z. Remember that ambiguous leadership actions are often interpreted negatively. If you slink back to your office and just start emailing people and don’t say things like I just said, people might say, well she’s really not excited to be back. She seems ambivalent about this. Is her head really in the game? They’re filling in a narrative because you have not provided them one. So, be preemptive. Decide what you want your story to be and then tell it.

AMY BERNSTEIN: So, how do you counsel your clients on the problem of exhaustion? Being completely wiped out so much of the time?

DAISY WADEMAN DOWLING: Yeah. There are a lot of different ways to approach this. And, but let me say upfront that there’s no silver bullet to this. Working and taking care of a child is a daunting task, and it’s tiring, and it can be overwhelming. And I wish I could solve that for myself and for all my clients, but it’s there. And so, let’s acknowledge that upfront. That said, there are a lot of things people can do, and you have more control than you think you do here. So, the first thing that I work with, with my clients is figuring out to the max, how much they can try and get off their plate at work. One exercise I encourage people to do is to every Friday afternoon, or evening, look back over their calendar for the past week and in an absolutely ruthless red-pen-in-hand kind of way, look at everything that was on their task list and everything that was on their calendar and try and cross things out. What could they have taken a shortcut on? What could they have not done, or not done so perfectly? What could they potentially delegated away or collaborated with somebody on to try and win themselves back even just a couple of hours. So, I think you can gain yourself just through good self-management techniques. A little bit of time and a little bit of time doesn’t, it sounds like well, that’s not going to change the world, but if you could get back 90 minutes in your week that you can spend with the baby, that’s going to make a big impact. So, that’s the first thing. The second thing is I encourage people while they’re on leave and this is a very, very delicate area that I always approach sort of with a light touch, but while they’re on leave to think about the things at home that are going to make them not exhausted. And the No. 1 thing that’s going to help them there is establishing for the whole family, establishing as much as possible, healthy sleep patterns. Now, we all have different babies. We all have different perspectives on how babies should be raised and cared for and everything, and I have no judgment whatsoever on people who make all kinds of different choices there. But there is no glory in martyrdom. And coming back to work, 12 or 20 weeks after you’ve had a baby and you’re still getting up, many, many, many times during the night is just, it’s a recipe for disaster. As much as possible, try and establish good continuity so that you can get some rest. And then finally, I just think general self-management techniques and energy-management techniques. As busy as you are, as crazy as life is, you should spend at least 15 minutes a day, whether it’s at work or on the drive home, or at home, doing something you find restful. Whether that’s reading the newspaper or going for a jog or a walk or something to clear your head. If you as a working mom aren’t going to take care of you, then nobody else will.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: Where do most managers fail in supporting parents, taking parental leave or preparing for parental leave? And what’s kind of the most important thing that we can do as managers to make this easier for our working parents?

DAISY WADEMAN DOWLING: Yeah, the No. 1 problem here is under communication. So, managers who may have many, many, many people reporting to them, usually underestimate how daunting, confusing, and opaque this whole working parenthood thing is for somebody who’s going through it for the first time. And they don’t do things like encourage the employee to talk to other people in the organization who have recently come back from parental leave or who have had that experience themselves to see what their advice and techniques, and what their experience was. They don’t do things like say, let’s sit down together and think exactly how everything will be covered while you’re out on leave. They sort of leave that to the employee and assume that the smart, hardworking person that they know and that they appreciate having on the team will just sort of make things happen. They trust and they’re busy on other things. This isn’t the only thing that’s top of mind for them, if it is at all. And they just don’t have those conversations. I think the more managers can prompt attention to the specific planning, again to the nitty gritty of how this is all going to go down, I think they do both themselves, the organization, and the individual such a huge favor. Now, I think for individuals, the key is to realize that your manager, again, your manager’s dealing with so much different stuff. They’re busy. They may even want to talk to you about some of those things, but if they’re not a recent parent themselves or that maybe they’re working in a remote office, they don’t see you on a day to day basis, they may also feel a little bit awkward talking to you about things that begin to feel a bit personal. Because it’s about you becoming a parent and having a child. So, they may even shy away from some of these topics. I think you as an individual do yourself and your manager a huge favor by prompting some of those conversations and saying things like, what advice do you have for me? How has this worked really well for other members of the team, or other people in the organization? Who should I be talking to? Who would be good mentors for me here? What kind of information do you want to see from me about how all these projects or clients will be covered before I go out on leave? How are you and I going to remain in contact during the three, four, five, six, whatever it is months that I’m away? What should be the schedule of us checking in, and what does that look like? And I think the more that you can sort of gently nudge your manager, the healthier it is. You’re bringing things that will have to be addressed and discussed at some point out into the open, but you’re bringing them out into the open early when they can be addressed and discussed constructively, as opposed to when you’ve already fallen into a negative habit, or there’s been a miscommunication and people are less happy.

AMY BERNSTEIN: So, if you’re a manager, and you see that someone on your team, just back from maternity or paternity leave, is kind of not keeping it together. The stress, the fatigue, it’s clearly getting to that person. How do you have that conversation? You want to help them. You don’t want to put them off. You don’t want them to shut down or feel embarrassed. How do you do that?

DAISY WADEMAN DOWLING: Yeah, I think it’s by asking a lot of open-ended questions. If you critique, it’s going to feel to the employee like you’re pushing them away, or that things have reached a really dire situation. It may just be that they’re off their game because the baby has been sick. So, I think simply asking some open ended questions. How are things going? What have things been like since you’ve been back? In what ways could I help make this an easier transition back for you? And you can surface the issue and then discuss it. That doesn’t mean that you have to solve the employee’s problems for them. It doesn’t mean that you have to jump in and be a hero and save them. It is their job to do their job. But at the same time you can establish a very neutral, supportive way to have some of those difficult conversations, as opposed to saying, you’re not keeping up. What’s going on? So, I would frame everything as a question and make certain that you’re being as neutral as possible in asking them.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: Daisy, thank you so much for talking to us today.

DAISY WADEMAN DOWLING: My pleasure. Thank you for having me.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Thanks so much, Daisy.

So, we’ve got a special guest with us today.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: Yes, Erica Truxler, associate editor at HBR and also pretty much a brand-new mom. Not exactly brand new anymore, but journeyman mom. [LAUGHTER]

NICOLE TORRES: Erica, we’re so excited that you’re here.

ERICA TRUXLER: Thank you for having me.

NICOLE TORRES: Well, I think I know the answer to this, but did you have a rehearsal day, as one of Daisy’s pieces of advice for how to prepare for coming back?

ERICA TRUXLER: Yes. So, we did. We tried. So, the week before I came back we had a daycare lined up and I thought, yes, I’m going to be responsible. I’m going to try to get Claire into the daycare and just see how it all goes. And my rehearsal day started off in a funny way in that I was so proud of myself because I got there at 9 A.M. when I thought that was when the daycare told me to arrive. And I get there and I see that the director is disheveled and kind of like, oh you’re here. And I realized that the time was actually 10 A.M. And so, it was one of those funny moments where I was so proud and then afterwards, it was very clear that I had arrived at the wrong time. But I did in terms of having a rehearsal day, at least I tried to rehearse with the daycare drop off. I didn’t quite do it in terms of getting, pretending, I was at my desk or something. So, I didn’t do the time as if I were actually going to get to work on time. But I tried to do the drop off. Leaving Claire, my little girl who’s now seven months old, for the first time was very, very good to do a week before, because I will be the first to admit there was a lot of crying on the way back when you drop off your baby for the first time. So, I’m very glad I did that first. We did daycare for two days before I came back.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: In some of those early days, I know you mentioned things didn’t quite go as planned. Claire would get a fever sometimes. She initially went on strike against bottle feeding. She was like, what is this? And so, there were all kinds of some early hurdles that weren’t expected. What was it like for you when that was happening? I mean, how did you feel about it, and how did you deal with it?

ERICA TRUXLER: Yes, so again, it’s so funny to hear. I did read our articles before going on leave, and like Amy mentioned, make a plan is the first thing they always say. Come back, make a plan. And you quickly learn, like I mentioned, again, that babies throw a wrench in your plans, and my baby just did not take a bottle. So, she essentially was fine taking it up to six weeks and then stopped taking it like a champ. Like completely, completely refused it. And she did not take a bottle at daycare for three weeks. So, she did not eat for three weeks when I was at work. And I would call at lunch and ask if Claire has eaten and the daycare would be like, I’m sorry, she’s still not eating. So, it’s a lot of guilt; and they talk about mom guilt, and I’ll be the first to say, before you have a baby, you kind of hear that and you’re like, well how bad can it be? How much guilt can you have? And then when you’re actually living it, the feeling of I’m sitting here drinking my hot coffee and my baby’s not eating is actually really, really a strong emotion. And meanwhile you’re trying to be productive. And meanwhile you’re trying to put on a front of professionalism. Meanwhile you’re exhausted. So, it’s a lot.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: And because she’s eating all night.

ERICA TRUXLER: Well that’s the thing.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: I mean right?

ERICA TRUXLER: Yeah, it’s not like she’s starving herself.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: But it’s like you’re not sleeping at all because she’s eating all night and then fasting all day.

ERICA TRUXLER: Exactly. So, she figured out her ways. So, the minute I would pick her up she would —

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: She’s a strong-willed girl.

ERICA TRUXLER: She already is. So, I would get home. I wouldn’t even be able to put my bag down. I was basically nursing her in the front entryway on the floor essentially because she was so mad. And then I would nurse from six to six in the morning. So, 12 hours every hour, two hours for the first three weeks and to be honest, I’m now, I came back when she was four months old. She’s now seven months and we’re still feeding every three hours. So, it’s not that I’m on the other side yet, but it’s gotten easier because now she’s eating at daycare, at least a bit.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: So, Erica, I manage you now, and I will say my biggest fear 100 % was just that you would decide not to come back. That you would be so happy at home with beautiful little baby Claire that you would not come back. And I was like, oh my God. I just need her to come back. So, I was so relieved when you came back. I was so worried those first stressful weeks when Claire was not eating. I was like, Claire, take the bottle. [LAUGHTER] What are you doing to me? So, I was just wondering, was there a moment when you thought maybe I can’t do this, or was there kind of something you were worried about?

ERICA TRUXLER: Thank you. I mean, it means a lot to hear that and I think, I will say as a working mom, you come back and you feel like you’re dropping the ball on everything, and there’s a real sense, I’m not a good mom, I’m not a good employee. Everybody’s noticing that I’m sleep deprived and can hardly write a sentence right now. And you feel that, so it’s wonderful always I think to hear that people want you to stay, even though you may not be feeling like a great employee yourself. And I’ll be the first to admit, yes there were definitely days when I was upstairs pumping, and you feel so bad that you’re like, I can’t do this. But I feel when you feel like you’re going to quit, you have to kind of step back and give yourself this, almost like this long game, which I think Daisy was mentioning. And I feel like that’s what I did. I gave myself a long game. And I did talk to people. So, I think there are definitely days where you still feel that way.

AMY BERNSTEIN: What can we as managers do to make this easier for you?

ERICA TRUXLER: That’s a really good question. I think it’s really interesting to me because I feel like there is this sense of trying to be two people. Trying to be the best mom and being the best employee. And I think the confidence, people saying, actually, you did a great job with that article. Because I’m not seeing that. I’m not seeing that I’m actually producing work. So, I think being able to get, maybe those first few weeks telling a mom, I noticed that you did that, and that was actually very good. And I will say, it just makes a difference your work culture. I have to say that I have never felt here that anyone is thinking about me any less. I think that helps a lot. And I think, I feel very fortunate to work here where I feel people are very, very understanding and I’ve always felt that way throughout all of the ups and downs of being just a human. So, I think it helps tremendously to have a supportive work culture and just too really, I think those first few weeks, as much positive feedback as you can give that new mom, the better.

NICOLE TORRES: I’m sure you got tons of advice while you were preparing to have a baby and take four months off. Was there any advice you thought really worked and you were super grateful to get? Was there any advice that didn’t really apply to you that you kind of discarded?

ERICA TRUXLER: For me it was helpful to have one eye on email, but also not to feel like I ever had to respond. I would just scroll, and it helped me kind of keep abreast of to, who’s leaving, who’s coming, what am I missing? It also in some ways helped me realize I’m actually not missing that much. I think you feel like you’re missing the world, and then you’re looking at the emails, going through and you’re, oh my colleagues have got it down. Everything’s still happening and its fine and I can just look at Claire and her play mat for the next three hours. So, it actually helps me, I think to just check in, but not as regularly.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: Maeve had a year of paid maternity leave from her employer, and that’s not a benefit that we have here, so I’m just curious to know if that’s something you would have wanted, if that would have helped you?

ERICA TRUXLER: It’s interesting. My inclination would have said initially it’s too long. And I know that Maeve also said, it’s too long. I’m not going to take it, but then after listening to her story and of course she had big support systems, so I think that makes it work. I do feel there’s real value in having that much time. I think I personally, I think as a nursing mom would find it so much easier than the balancing act of trying to find time to pump every few hours at work, is really hard. And the one time I didn’t and I went back to back meetings, I ended up with mastitis, which if anyone’s listening, just so they know, it’s terrible. So, if you have back-to-back meetings and you missed your window, you’re going to have a fever and be sick. So, I think it’s one of those things where all of that, it also just, like I said before, I surprised myself how I didn’t feel lonely at home and I think I probably would have enjoyed being home with Claire for a longer amount of time. But that said, I do have hesitations about, coming back to work is never easy. Whether it’s three months, six months a year, a year sounds like it should be easier, but it’s still a band-aid you need to rip off. You’re not going to see your baby all day. So, it could still just be as hard a year as it is six months, as three months. So, it’s a good question, and I almost feel like it’s a tricky one to answer. But it does sound, I’m not going to lie, sound tempting.

NICOLE TORRES: Erica, thank you for sitting and talking to us, telling us all about your experience.

AMY BERNSTEIN: And thanks so much for your candor.

ERICA TRUXLER: Thank you. Thanks for having me.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: Thank you for not leaving after having a baby.

ERICA TRUXLER: Thank you guys. [LAUGHTER]

AMY BERNSTEIN: It sure is good to have you back.

ERICA TRUXLER: Thank you all. Thank you.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: That’s our show. I’m Sarah Green Carmichael.

AMY BERNSTEIN: I’m Amy Bernstein.

NICOLE TORRES: And I’m Nicole Torres. Our producer is Amanda Kersey. Our audio product manager is Adam Buchholz. Maureen Hoch is our supervising editor. We get production help from Rob Eckhardt and Isis Madrid.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: One of the ways we can encourage companies to offer paid parental leave is by getting more parents to tell their story about their experiences with it. Whether they’re good or bad.

AMY BERNSTEIN: So, we’d like to hear from you. Email us, womenatwork@HBR.org, If you’d like to tell us your story, and we’ll chose some to record and play on an upcoming episode.

NICOLE TORRES: And of course you can email us about anything else women-and-work related. We always like reading what you have to say. Again, our email is womenatwork@HBR.org. Thanks for listening.

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