Planning Your Leave

Figuring out the details of your parental leave should, in an ideal world, be completely straightforward and take about five minutes. For the majority of expectant mothers and fathers, though, it turns into a longer and often very confusing process. Why? Because the amount of time you take is often determined by a combination of complex national leave laws; local laws, which can vary widely and change frequently; and employer policies, which can appear cut-and-dried but are often riddled with “ifs” and exceptions (some organizations will deny you paid leave if you’ve worked there for less than a year, for example). Your employment status can be a significant factor also: if you’re an entrepreneur, a small-business employee, a part-timer, or a freelancer, of if you are paid by the hour or are working outside your country of citizenship, you may be held to a different set of rules—or not eligible for the leave you expected. And of course, even if you are technically eligible for a certain leave, there’s your company’s culture and unwritten rules to think of, as well as your own sense of what’s best and workable for your family and career. When you’re eagerly looking forward to your child’s arrival and suddenly finding yourself confronting this kind of bureaucracy, fine print, and need for subjective decisions, it can be jarring, but if you know where to look for information and know all the right questions to ask, you’ll be best able to get this sorted out as quickly as possible.

Unless you’re already rock-solid certain of what you’re eligible for, start by taking an hour or so simply to educate yourself. Double-check both national and local government websites for the most up-to-date guidelines and any pending changes on parental leave, and then check your company’s employee handbook or intranet for the same. Go straight to the source: do not rely on parenting blogs, news articles, or coworkers for hard data. Given the complexity and constant flux in leave laws and policy, and the many factors influencing how those rules may apply to you, there is a real possibility that you may be given inaccurate, incomplete, or out-of-date information.

Once you’ve got a grasp of the legal and policy basics, do some “soft research” by checking in with a few trusted colleagues, as well as with friends in the industry or at similar organizations. Ask for any extra detail and color on how they were able to negotiate, use, or extend their leaves, and what in retrospect they would have done or tried to do differently. Were they allowed to work from home the last week before their due date? Add on accrued personal days? Does your organization offer long leaves on paper but frown on people who actually take them? Your goal here is to round out the hard facts with full and detailed context—and to make yourself as savvy a consumer of parental leave as possible. (Think of approaching leave the same way you would buying a car: with a lot of up-front research yielding the best outcome.) Only after you’ve done all your research and benchmarking will you be ready to have an informed conversation with your manager or human resources representative to make sure you’re on the same page, to clear up any gray areas, and to nail down your specific plans.

Be sure to come away from this information-gathering process with answers to all of the following questions:

• How much time am I eligible to take? What happens if, for medical or other reasons, I need or wish to extend that time?
• Do I have to take this time all at one go? Can I break it up and take it in chunks?
• How is the start of my leave determined? Is it the day the baby’s born, my last day in the office or workplace, or a specific day I agree on with my manager?
• If I’m a biological mother, and placed on medical disability or bed rest before the birth, how will that affect my leave and pay?
• Can I extend my leave period by adding on vacation time, personal days, or any other accrued time off? Are there any other “unofficial” ways to get more time?
• How much will I get paid, and by whom (the company, the government, an insurer)?
• If my leave is paid, can I take extra time unpaid? If so, how much?
• How will parental leave affect any aspects of my pay beyond my base salary (e.g., overtime, vacation allowance, bonus, stock grants, vesting of any incentive compensation, tuition reimbursements, accrual toward retirement benefits, etc.)?
• How do health and all other benefits (wellness programs, ongoing education, etc.) carry over throughout my leave?
• What am I guaranteed upon my return to work? The same job? A similar job? What defines “same” or “similar”?
• How will my leave be taken into account at performance-appraisal time? (Note: this is a trick question. Parental status or leaves should never be factored into your job evaluations.)
• What’s the procedure for documenting my leave? Who should I connect with about the paperwork, or if I have additional questions?

If you’re at all confused, push a little. Don’t be afraid to nudge the HR person for additional detail on how nonsequential leave periods can be timed, or to point out to your manager that other mothers and fathers at your organization have beefed up their leaves by using vacation days. Good decisions and good self-advocacy start with good information, and you’re well within your rights to ask for complete clarity on something so important. Be certain to do any of this questioning and pushing in a polite, constructive way, however. You don’t want to come across as whiny, or entitled. Remember: how you operate as a working parent is an important part of your professional brand.

Leave Length: What If I’m … ?

Once you’ve determined the actual length of your leave, you’ll want to address your own questions and concerns about how to make that amount of time work best for you. In this section, we’ll look at each of the most common leave-length dilemmas, and at sensible ways to approach them. We’ll start with longer time frames and work our way down to short leaves, or no leave. Focus only on the sections that apply to you and your particular situation. If you get a whole year’s worth of paid leave, then yes, it will be appalling to think about people who get none—and if you get little leave, it’s going to be tough to read about people who have more leave than they actually want. Leave equity is an important, and emotional, issue. But for right now, focus on how to do right by you.

Creating an Effective Transition and Coverage Plan

Once you’ve nailed down your leave timing, you’ll need to figure out how your work will be covered while you’re away. If you’ll be gone for a month or less, this should be fairly easy; the handover can be very similar to any you would do before going on a vacation. If your leave will be longer, your plan will have to be more thought-through and formal, and you’ll want to invest in getting the folks covering for you up to speed. That may sound like a lot of work, but if you know the important dos and don’ts, you’ll be able to create an effective coverage and transition plan without having it become a job unto itself.

When developing your “while I’m out” proposal, you should:

• Be the instigator.  Your boss may have ultimate accountability for everything that happens in the department, but your job is your job. You need to offer up potential solutions and get the conversation rolling.
• Go broad.  Think top-to-bottom about your responsibilities, and don’t leave the unseen or “housekeeping” parts of your job uncovered.
• Get it down on paper.  Transition conversations will simply go better when you have something in front of you to refer to. You want to be working—quite literally—off the same page as your boss and team.
• Keep it simple and future-focused.  Think of your plan as an answer to the question, “How will we ensure success in the coming months?” And put it in a quick-gulp format: a one-page table with columns marked project (or client, shift, product, etc.) owner, key actions, deliverables and target outcomes, and key things to know, works well, and can easily be tacked up on your boss’s wall.
• Include notes on how you want to be contacted, for what, and when.  Should you be kept in the loop when the litigation settles, when quarterly numbers are released, or if your main supplier misses the delivery window? By email, phone, messaging app? Include this information to save yourself time and confusion, and to avoid uncomfortable “why didn’t you tell me” moments later on.
• Socialize it.  Once you’ve agreed on the plan with your boss, discuss it with all relevant coworkers. If you work extensively with partners outside the organization, make them aware of your high-level plans, too. If you work in corporate public relations, for example, you may want your key contact at the digital agency to be in the loop. In general, the more buy-in you have and the more questions you preempt, the smoother your leave will go.
• See it as a personal marketing opportunity.  Aside from job interviews and your annual review, you don’t get a lot of chances to discuss the totality of what you do and your full value to the organization. Think carefully about how you come across, and make sure your transition plan speaks to your value and impact.

And conversely, you shouldn’t:

• Make it feel too bureaucratic.  You’re human, and so is your boss—and the quality and tone of your conversations will be much more important and effective in driving your overall experience than whatever appears on page 8 of a written plan.
• Expect too much of one person.  An overburdened coworker may not do the work to your preferred standards and may deeply resent having to carry so much extra load. There’s potential risk here, too: if the person you’ve handed everything off to leaves the organization, you’ll be left in the lurch. Spread responsibilities out among various colleagues, if you can.
• Make the mistake of thinking that “in writing” means “will absolutely be honored.”  The fact that your transition plan is on paper doesn’t make it a legal agreement—and realistically, workplace budgets, strategies, and staffing levels can change. Expect the document you create to be used as a guideline, not as gospel.
• Ignore the return to work.  Your transition plan needs to cover two transitions: your departure and your return. Way too many parents make the mistake of focusing heavily on the former and ignoring the latter, shortchanging themselves badly in the process. Identify who will cover while you’re gone, but also be certain to agree on exactly how (and just as crucially, when) they’ll pass the work—or customers, P&L, extra shifts, or juicy career opportunities—over when you get back.

Staying in Touch While You’re Out

If you decide to stay fully on top of work and in touch with your colleagues while you’re away, you risk turning this precious time with the baby into an effective work-from-home arrangement, which defeats the entire purpose. On the other hand, if you turn all of your attentions homeward, you risk feeling professionally out of touch, and of having the transitions to parenthood and then back to work feel even more abrupt. If you can think of leave as a timeline or continuum, though (instead of as a zero-sum, “do I engage, or don’t I?” choice), you’ll be able to strike the right personal and practical balance.

However long your leave is, think of it as having four phases:

• Phase 1:  During the first third of your leave, focus on yourself and your family, and give yourself permission to completely check out from work. Put your smartphone away and let the emails go. Use this time to recover from the arrival, if you need to, and to be an all-in mom or dad.
• Phase 2:  During the middle portion of leave, keep tabs on work, but in a limited way, and quietly. Check messages without responding to them, monitor what’s in the shared drive without making edits, or get informal updates from a few trusted coworkers. You’ll stay up to date on everything happening on the job, but your time will remain your own. Easier said than done, of course: your professional instinct will be to jump back in feet first at the slightest sign of trouble on any project, or in an effort to make certain things are done right. A month or two into parenting, you may also be craving the reassurance of work—that feeling of competence and authority. Beware, though, that as soon as you get back into the fray, it will be impossible to get yourself out. Once your colleagues see that you’re responding to messages, you’ll be deluged with them.
• Phase 3:  In your last few weeks or months away, begin responding to messages, have a transition-in meeting with your manager, schedule upcoming shifts or important meetings, sketch out key priorities, and do whatever else you need to for an organized, effective, good-momentum return. But be careful: to avoid being pulled back in too early, set a firm daily or weekly time limit on this work.
• Phase 4:  At the very end of leave, return to phase 1, and put every ounce of your attention back at home. With all the pieces in place for a good start back at work, you can immerse yourself in parenting, savor every minute, and know that you’re using every last second of your leave to its fullest.

How to Think About—and Use—Leave When You’re Not the Primary Caregiver

If your partner is pregnant, and/or if the plan is for him or her to take the lead on childcare, you may find yourself harboring secret—or not-so-secret—apprehensions about going on leave yourself. What are you supposed to be doing while both of you are home? Do you really want to be around all day when your partner is this exhausted, or is postpartum, or is feeding the baby and you can’t help anyway? Wouldn’t it just be better if you stayed at work? These concerns are all standard, and you’re right to listen to your instincts on how much time to spend at home. That being said, you have an important mission here, and with the right moves, you can become an unsung hero in this story.

Think of yourself as having three critical functions while on leave:

• As defender, you’ll help draw the boundaries needed such that your primary-caregiving partner can either rest and focus on the baby, or put his or her energies into the return to work. You’ll make certain that the stream of well-intentioned relatives, neighbors, and other would-be visitors doesn’t become too overwhelming, and if your partner is also a working parent, you’ll encourage him or her not to spend too much time on work emails and not to get pulled back into the job too early. Playing this kind of defense now will pay off later, when things are on the best possible keel at home.
• As fixer, you’ll take charge of the practical details that can become overwhelming with a new child around: organizing all the insurance paperwork, restocking the diaper supply, making the pediatrician appointments, and so on. No, this work won’t be glamorous—but your professional skills are invaluable here, and taking operational charge during this time will set your family off on a strong, stable footing and let your partner find more of a day-to-day caregiving groove.
• As coach, you’ll help your partner through his or her own transition to parenthood and/or working parenthood, providing regular reality checks, reassurance, and praise.

If your apprehensions are deep enough that you’re leaning toward not taking any of the leave you’re entitled to, step back and think: you’re a role model now, whether you like it or not. The aspiring parents at work may never admit it, but they’re watching you like a hawk to see if parenting is possible in your field or organization. Do you really want the next person to think “See? I shouldn’t/don’t need to/can’t take parental leave” because of your own behavior? Taking your leave—and talking positively about it—is your best way to lay good groundwork for other moms and dads in the future.

How to Feel in Charge of Your Career While Away

You’re going to be busy while on leave—very busy. Between diaper changes, feedings, health appointments, finalization of your care arrangements, and ongoing lack of sleep, what initially looked like a good long stretch of “time off” may slip by in an exhausting, frenetic blur. It’s essential right now that you pump the brakes on any type-A tendency toward feeling as if you need to be accomplishing anything, or moving forward in your career. Give your regular ambition a sabbatical: your child is precious, leave is short, and you’ll have plenty of opportunities to shine professionally in the coming months and years.

If being on leave has left you with some career-related anxiety, however, or if you feel that it’s taking you uncomfortably far out of the game, try using these easy ways to help tamp down that worry, reassert control over your professional life, and regain your sense of accomplished self, all without eroding your precious time away.

• Update your résumé.  Creating a complete summary of all your professional achievements is the swiftest, most powerful way to build—or retain—professional confidence.
• Gussy up your LinkedIn profile.  Add any recent projects completed, clients won, recognitions received, and any meaningful extracurricular activities or volunteer work.
• Join any local networking events run by your industry or trade group.  An hour or two spent in circulation can help you feel like your professional self again and serve as a sort of mini–dress rehearsal for the return to work later.
• Refresh your network.  Reconnect with past managers, mentors, peers, or recruiters you haven’t had contact with recently. In-person meetings may be too much to handle right now, but a brief email update or social-media connection can do the trick.
• Ensure all your professional certifications are fully up-to-date.   Also identify a few professional-education opportunities—attending that conference, getting that advanced certification—you want to pursue over the coming few years.
• Read up on emerging trends in your field.  Get smart on emerging technologies, pending legislation, and what your competitors are up to.
• Identify any low-time-investment, high-professional-visibility opportunities.  These would be pursued over the coming year or two. Think about speaking at a professional conference, writing an article for a trade magazine, or raising your hand for an organization-wide committee or project that will give you more face time with colleagues outside your regular circle. You don’t need to take any action right now; just draw confidence from the fact that—as always—you’re actively thinking about your career and planning a few steps ahead.

Go Back on a Thursday—and Other Ways to Make the Return to Work Easier

Whether you’ve been away from work for a week or a year, and whether it’s your first child or fifth, the return from parental leave can be hard—both practically and emotionally. As your leave time winds down, you’ll likely begin slipping into a dark and gloomy mental space: wondering whether the care arrangements you’ve worked so hard to put in place are really the right ones, if it’s even possible to get morning feedings finished before 6:30 a.m., how you’re ever going to make it through that first day—and so many more days just like it—without the baby, if your career is really worth it, and so on. Every one of these thoughts and feelings is completely normal, very common, and should be taken as reassuring, wonderful proof of how bonded you are to your child.

Nonetheless, that first day back is looming and daunting, and you’ll want to navigate it as best you can. Here’s how to make reentry easier.

• Rehearse it.  A few days before returning, hold an “as if” day: get up, get dressed, have breakfast, get the baby ready, do the caregiving handover, and make the trip in to work. (When you get there, simply turn around and go home.) This run-through will reveal any potential logistical snags—drop-off takes longer than you thought, for example—and provide a no-stakes chance to work around them. Then, on your first real day back you’ll be out of improvisation mode and have some good I know what I’m doing confidence.
• Get as much help as you can.  Ask the grandparents to come stay so they can act as on-site emergency childcare—and cheerleaders. See if your neighbor will look in on the baby and his caregiver and keep you posted. Or take a tag-team approach: have your partner take your first day back at work off, and vice versa. Those extra layers of support and backup will go a long way toward minimizing your stress.

• Go back on a Thursday.  Head back to work on a Monday and you’ll face an unbroken five-day stretch away from your child. Return on a Thursday and that first week back becomes far less menacing. You’ll have two good days to get into your new routine—and then, before you know it, get to enjoy a weekend with your family.
• Tell people you’re returning a day later than you actually are.  If your coworkers don’t realize you’re back yet, they can’t deluge you with questions, tasks, and to-dos. A silent return buys you a brief window of unhurried, unpressured time to get your bearings.
• Have a contact list.  Think of your workplace allies and supporters, including colleagues you like; customers or clients who particularly appreciate your work; trusted mentors; and other recent-vintage working parents. During your first few days back, call or stop by to speak with them. Their tangible enthusiasm (“You’re back! Good to see you!”) will give you a jolt of energy.
• Book in your next vacation.  Returning to work without any kind of break on the horizon is a recipe for feeling overwhelmed and beaten down, and fast. But if you can savor the thought that in just a few short months you’ll spend a whole week with the baby enjoying your sister’s beach condo, or relaxing at home as a family over the New Year’s holiday, that early time back will be easier to face, and go by much more quickly.

Owning Your Narrative

Once back on the job, you may be tempted to get straight to work—and keep your head down. And that’s understandable: when you’re handling such a huge transition and eager to finish up as early as you can each day, you won’t feel like spending those twenty minutes messaging your colleagues about weekend plans or wasting time in aimless chitchat around the water cooler. Don’t make the mistake of undercommunicating, though, or of assuming your colleagues have an accurate take on your thoughts and actions. If your colleagues don’t know your real story, they may make assumptions: silence may be interpreted as lack of commitment, for example, or your boss may automatically think that as a brand-new parent you’re more interested in flexibility than promotion. It’s essential to take control of your story right now, and to leave the impression you want. Doing so means getting “out there,” deliberately connecting with coworkers, and talking about yourself as a working parent—which may feel deeply awkward. Even if you’re an extrovert and a communications natural, this is an interaction you’ve probably never prepped for or gotten any hand-holding on.

To make your working-parent message easier and more effective, think of yourself as putting it inside a frame defined on four sides by your priorities, next steps, commitment, and enthusiasm. Let’s say it’s Day One back from parental leave, and you’ve got colleagues dropping by your desk to say hello. Say something like, “It’s good to see you and great to be back! I’m spending the next couple of days getting up to speed on the product specifications so we’re ready for the design meeting on Tuesday. I’m looking forward to getting approval on the new prototypes.” That will work vastly better than a simple, “It’s good to see you”—or silence. The first statement brings your listener(s) into your full professional and personal plan and showcases your dedication to the team. You’ve minimized the chance of misunderstandings, taken control over perception and messaging, and kept things positive and authentic. (This same four-part framing technique works in many different situations; throughout the book, we’ll explore how you can use it to your advantage both in your day-to-day and high-stakes workparenting conversations.)

If you need to advocate for yourself, correct a potential misimpression, or make a specific ask during the return-to-work period, be direct, and try using if-I-were-you language: “You may be wondering if I’m still interested in taking on more, given the twins’ arrival. But I want you to know that I’m still ready, willing, and able to become assistant principal this fall.” And if you’re feeling blue or experiencing a sense of loss at the return to work, it’s OK to admit it in a moderate, balanced way, saying something like, “It’s not easy to be away from my little guy, but it’s good to be back with the team.” You’re being authentic, but positive—and every colleague with a heart will understand.

The One-Month Check-In

During your first several weeks back at work you’ll feel as if you’re learning to ride a bike: you’ll be wobbly, you’ll have to make constant adjustments, and there will be a lot of stops and starts. You may suddenly get emotional (or even teary), or find that the manufacturing contract you had whipped into shape before your leave now needs to be renegotiated. While the reentry phase can be rough, don’t assume that one difficult day means you’re doomed, try not to come to any sweeping long-term conclusions about workparenting, and above all, resist the urge to take your emotional temperature too often. Your goal now is just to move ahead, one day at a time. In doing so, you’ll gradually find your footing.

After the first month or so, though, it can be very helpful to do a review and reset: to step back, look at how things are going, and consider any new approaches or tweaks that can make your workparenting life easier, better, and more satisfying. Reflect by yourself first, and then check in with the other key players: your partner, caregivers, mentors, and boss. You’re not looking for praise, or for a letter grade, but for new life hacks and sensible actions. After thinking through the daily routine with your partner, for example, you may agree that taking turns getting up fifteen minutes earlier each day could relieve a lot of the early-morning frenzy, or after reflecting on the professional routine you’ve got in place you may decide to take on some overtime hours again.

For the people closest to you, of course, you can keep these take-stock-and-recalibrate conversations completely informal. If you choose to speak with a boss or higher-up, though, you may want to be a little more scripted: “I’m four weeks back from leave, and while it’s certainly been a transition, I feel I’ve managed to get a good handle on things. Given our work together, though, I wanted to check in, ensure you feel the same, and see if there are any additional adjustments I should make, particularly as we get the store ready for the holiday sales.” Putting it like this reminds your boss to recognize and appreciate the work and thought you’ve put into your transition, and—particularly if he’s a working father himself—may prompt some good, authentic advice. Be careful to keep the conversation positive, and not to ask about your boss’s concerns, observations, or feedback. This isn’t a performance evaluation—it’s about process improvement, with some appropriate self-marketing thrown in.

Celebrating New Achievements

Up until this point in your life and career, you’ve thought of “achievements” as big, objectively desirable, easily measurable milestones: you’ve completed your degree, lived abroad, landed a great job, bought a house, run a marathon, or been promoted. Now, as a brand-new working parent, it can feel like a victory to get to work on time and without spit-up stains all over your clothes, or just to stay awake on the job after a long night up with the baby. For most motivated, committed professionals, this is a major, humbling adjustment. You may feel even less professionally powerful and competent than you did at the very beginning of your career, and be wondering if, when, and how you’ll ever get back to the top of your game.

As hard as it is, be patient with the process of becoming a workparent, and try to see what you’re doing now as a major milestone achievement all its own. You’re still every bit as hardworking and high-performing, but for right now your successes are of a different sort. And soon you’ll be racking up the kinds of achievements that only a working parent can: you’ll get that deep satisfaction that comes from nailing a huge new contract—and a few hours later walking through the door to see your smiling baby; or of putting that first check into his education-savings account. Becoming a positive, proactive workparent is a stand-up, affirmative choice. You’ve started the new job well, you’ve got a lot to be proud of already—and will have much more throughout Year One.