Beth Wanner (00:00)
look at the number of employees who take leave, then track what happens to those employees after they return. When do they return and for how long? there's an important stat about a third of women
leave their roles within 18 months of returning from parental leave. And it's not for reasons that many think, we might just assume, they've decided to be a stay-at-home parent that becomes a self fulfilling prophecy
We didn't support their leave properly. We we didn't give them coverage. We didn't create a roadmap for them to return because we just assumed that they weren't going to,
Only about three to four percent of them become stay-at-home parents.
Dee Davis (00:51)
Good morning and welcome to the Management Under Construction podcast. I'm your host, Dee Davis, and today we have something very unique for you. We have Beth Wanner from Mother Cover. That sounds like a weird thing to be talking about in a construction and management podcast, but here's the deal, guys. Mothercover is a company that provides coverage for people going on leave for any reason.
parental leave or otherwise. And I think that is a fabulous thing for our industry to explore. So welcome Beth. Please tell us a little bit about yourself and Mother Cover.
Beth Wanner (01:32)
Hi Dee, thanks for having me. So that was a great intro. What we do is we're we're a specialized agency that focuses on stepping in for for interim leave. So whether it's parental leave, that's really the the scenario that we were founded on. But it could be medical, could be mental health, could be sabbaticals, all sorts of of things that pull people away from work temporarily, but they're individuals who really care about their their careers and how that leave could be
approached. So we focus on what the transition in looks like, how to cover that role from a professional standpoint, and then how do we hand it back to an individual.
Dee Davis (02:12)
I found Beth on a LinkedIn article. She made a LinkedIn post and I responded to it and we started corresponding and I'm like, you know what, we've got to get her on the show because I've been in this industry long enough. I can tell you every single person that works in the construction and engineering industry says that it is impossible to get away. You feel bad even taking a week off because the job doesn't stop.
when you go away on vacation and often there's no one to cover. Project teams don't have a lot of redundancy. So whether you're working on a project or even working in the office, if you're HR or marketing director even for a company, who's going to take care of your position while you're gone? So that's exactly the kind of coverage that Mother Cover offers.
Can you tell us a little bit about how you started Mothercover and why?
Beth Wanner (03:08)
Yeah, so my story has a few, let's say, twists and turns to it. So prior to starting Mothercover, my background is not HR, it's not recruitment, it's marketing. And I spent 15 years as a marketing executive in the tech space. And I knew I wanted to start a family eventually, but it was always in the back of my mind of how will I do that when I am in a demanding
position and a fast-paced career and I really care about building my career and I was nervous about what any time away would mean for that. but more so from an internal standpoint, how will I manage that time away? How will I be different when I come back as a parent? Skip forward through through a bit of it. We ended up navigating infertility and eventually IVF to have my daughter. And
Two days after finding out that I was finally pregnant, I got laid off. And that was a moment in my life where I I felt like it was possible that it was coming, that the what my company was facing. Of course, I was on the leadership team, I knew what financial crunches we were were navigating. And I remember saying to my husband when we were waiting for the test results to find out whether our embryo transfer had worked or not was, would you rather?
Test results are negative, but I get to keep my job, or they're positive, but I don't have a job tomorrow. And I'm a primary breadwinner of my family. So it wasn't a small thing to lose my job, but I have a wonderful husband and he did not hesitate to say, lose your job, let's have a baby. So that is what ended up happening.
But then, like I said, because I'm the primary breadwinner, I couldn't take that much time away. And I didn't want to have that big of a career gap on my resume. So I immediately went looking for another job. Was fortunate to get another VP of marketing job at another tech company. Shared with them once I got the offer that I was pregnant, and they did not hide at all how upset they were. And I got fired at eight months pregnant.
And that no hope at finding another job at that point. So as I said, I was nervous about the internal standpoint and I got a rude awakening to how it is seen that a critical team member is going to take any time away and how that feels to accompany on the worst side of it. So I shared my story on LinkedIn really thinking that I was alone.
and ended up hearing from hundreds of other women and men who either experienced that same level of discrimination or had been laid off while pregnant on maternity leave or shortly after returning, or just felt in general like parenthood and and their career had really collided. And since I was up at night anyway with a newborn, my wheels were spinning about why is this still seen as such a disruption.
And I thought back to putting myself back in my company's shoes and of the more supportive companies that I've worked for in the past, even those that I I would say have great cultures, when somebody would come share that they're pregnant, you hopefully say congratulations, but then the door shuts and I would be behind that door and I would hear everybody go, no.
How do we handle this? Who's gonna step in? Is this gonna fall on my plate? How do we find someone? Do we just disperse the work? Do we pause important projects that are happening? And all those things are fair logistical concerns. They're real. And I don't think we're gonna solve for the extreme cases of discrimination, but for those who want to do better, but those moments where you're like, I'm happy for my team member, but this sucks for me.
is what's leading to maybe unconscious bias or just good leaders making decisions that inadvertently affect their team members' careers and and or their stress levels or their their comfort with coming back to their role. So at the time this there had been this rise in folks pursuing contract and fractional work, a lot of people impacted by layoffs that are now kind of gone going out on their own
but if they found themselves there out of circumstance, they now quite enjoy that. And the idea for Mother Cover was how do we marry those individuals with companies who have upcoming leaves, make it all that we do. So we're focused on all the pain points and the logistical challenges that companies have and solve for for those and make it easy for them to find the right talent to step in.
How do you onboard them? How do you create a great transition plan? How do they cover and document the work while they're in it? And how do they hand it back to the individual in a spot that's as good, if not better, than how they left it? So we're supporting the individual being able to take leave and not worry about creating a burden for their team or their company and that inadvertently making them feel unsafe in their own career by solving for the company's main challenges of this is hard, and if we don't acknowledge
And
we don't solve for, like I said, those real logistical challenges. We can't ultimately help parents or caregivers as we're caring for aging parents, medical leave, mental health. This isn't just a women's issue. Everybody has things that they care about outside of work and we'll need that support at one time or another and not want it to be at a crossroads of do I care for myself or a loved one and sacrifice my career. we want to be able to show that both can coexist.
Dee Davis (08:21)
That's right. I'm so glad that you mentioned that this just isn't a woman's issue because I've seen it and heard it over and over again over the years. And just I think last week, to be honest with you, back when I was having kids, dads didn't get parental leave back then. And now they do, and that's a wonderful thing. I'm so grateful that we have gotten to the point where
men get parental leave as well as women do. But here's the thing: the men are starting to experience this discrimination for the very first time. So men, dads that are taking that parental leave, they're getting backlash from their bosses, they're getting backlash from their co-workers, they're getting criticized, ridiculed.
I worked on a project one time years ago where a man that I worked with it was so disrespectful. I I don't even know the right word for it, but he was shamed publicly his wife got a a great job and he needed to stay home with the kids for a little while so she could focus on what she was doing.
And he just got publicly humiliated at the job for it by his own boss. It was just, it was horrible. I felt terrible for the guy. he wanted to take a temporary leave of absence. That was his request. I need a three or four month leave of absence and then I'll be back. They told him there is no leave of absence. You can't have it. You're either in or you're out. And that was the choice he was given. And so he said, Well, then I'm out.
And this was somebody that was good at their job, they were technically proficient, they showed up to work every day. This person didn't do anything wrong, made all the right decisions for himself, his family, and his career, and they let him go. I I was
stunned.
Beth Wanner (10:12)
there there's an interesting
line that as as you say that that men now find themselves walking is that there's a certain amount of time, but it might only be a about a week when it when a man man becomes a a father and taking about a week of leave, it's kudos to him, what a great dad. But as soon as you start taking any more than that, it is, well that's just a vacation. What are you actually doing at home?
still all those those stereotypes of well you can't breastfeed or those types of things that that means that you can't provide any any value during those early weeks and months. But there's now so much more data and studies showing of even just the rate of divorce going down when men take longer leave because your partner needs support and care. I had
a C-section. I could not function without my husband at home during those weeks. So it's not just about what are you doing for your infant and those bonding time, which is very important too, but your your partner needs a partner. and that is a leadership quality in itself that we need to invest more in. You want the caring leader that took that time and then came back.
with a different set of skills that you can't get anywhere else.
Dee Davis (11:34)
Yeah, it's so true. I say this all the time and I'll say it again, my my sons, my nephews, my sons in law, I'm so proud of each and every one of them and what great dads they're being and how they're participating so much more than previous generations have in their children's lives. And I think that's very important, but it's not just we just had a baby, either.
It's parental care. It's maybe I need a leave of absence because I'm just really been pushing it here. And I've just I need some time. I know that when I get to the end of a really big project, I'm exhausted and I need some time off. And I'm an independent contractor, I can do that. But if I'm an employee, I remember saying to my boss at the end of a big job one time, I said, you know what, when this job's over, I'm gonna take three months off.
I wasn't asking to be paid for those three months. I was willing to use whatever vacation I had and take the rest of it unpaid. And I was told, no, you're not. We will fire you if you try to take a leave of absence. So this is the kind of thing, and it it comes from a company culture problem. It also comes from the fear of what's going to happen if you're absent for a really long time, whatever that looks like, and and whatever the reason.
that you're gone is. The reason doesn't matter as to why you're gone. So what mother cover can do is help bring in that coverage and not just you leave on Friday and the other person starts on Monday. There's overlap, right?
Beth Wanner (13:10)
Yes, so particularly when we're talking about a parental leave, so something that you can plan for. So it's different when maybe it's a a medical leave or or caregiven leave that you didn't necessarily see see coming. But for something like a parental leave, we typically require at least two weeks of overlap with the person going on leave, but the longer the better. And that can really be stepped up too. It doesn't have to be that you're having
a one to one replacement at at that time where you're paying two full salaries. It might be
Four to six weeks of overlap, but it might be five hours a week with what we call a leave partner that's stepping in and absorbing that person's role and helping to document it, which becomes something that's really valuable beyond the leave itself. So we all talk about succession planning or somebody just winning the lottery and being gone tomorrow. You need to document more of your processes as you're growing and scaling. So it's a good forcing function to treat a parental leave or any type of leave as a
Good way to start creating that operational resiliency. So we work with a person going on leave like I said, a minimum of two weeks, but four to six weeks is ideal, and that's how you're stepping into that person's shoes. You're not looking for somebody that's coming with their own vision and strategy, and it's going to completely overhaul that role. You need somebody that's going to create continuity for that person that's going to be coming back to it.
Dee Davis (14:36)
That's awesome. you clearly saw a gap because of your own experience and being an executive in a company and listening in on all these conversations, you saw the need in the marketplace for a company like Mothercover. What did you notice about the effect that somebody leaving with no coverage had on Teams when that person was gone?
Beth Wanner (14:57)
Yeah, this is a a big area that I think doesn't get enough discussion is that for a lot of companies the approach to date has been if it's a 12-week at parental leave, we're just going to disperse the work amongst the existing team. And I would argue that didn't work then. is it really has a lot of hidden issues. One
Burnout of your existing team or just knowledge transfer? Do they know how to step into that person's role? But most people are already operating at 115%, especially now as as teams have gotten leaner, there isn't that extra fat for lack of a better word, built into our our teams today. So if somebody's already operating at 115%, how do they absorb somebody else's role?
But that was never really talked about because there's so many layers to somebody going on leave. For the most part, hopefully you do really like and it I want to support your your team member and you recognize what they're going through in their personal life and you want to be supportive of that. If you raise your hand and say, Hey, I'm getting swamped by taking on this person's role, I don't want to do that,
it makes you feel like you look like you're not supporting that person taking parental leave or or whatever they're needing their their time away for, but there's that pressure from from your company as well. But there's a great study put out in 2025 from AFLEC that measured this saying that I believe it's about 71% of employees experienced a moderate to high degree of stress if they were covering for another team member on leave that went beyond eight weeks.
And you start seeing turnover of that team. So it's not just now the retention issue of does a person on leave come back or not? Did they feel supported? Are they nervous about the state of their role as they come back to it? But it's also the turnover of the team that got burnt out covering it. And the most interesting thing about that study was able to measure the amount of leave that led to more leave. So the the individuals covering for that leave experiencing.
stress, burnout, and even leading to their own illnesses that led to their own need for for leave. So these are the things that are harder to see on your balance sheet. So when it becomes a discussion of well, do we pay to bring in external backfill or do we just disperse it amongst the team? We've looked at it at a cost versus a free option.
Studies like this are showing that there's no such thing as a free option. It's just going to show up differently somewhere else, and it's going to actually be a lot more expensive when you consider that replacement costs for an employee can be anywhere between 50% to 200% of their salary. If they're a more senior person, you might have recruiter fees on top of that. And then just the disruption to your actual business. Are they client facing? Are they a revenue generating role? We had a a parent that.
Went on leave that we spoke to afterwards. She was an account manager, and all of her accounts got assigned to another colleague who didn't have capacity for them and naturally prioritized her own accounts. And when this individual came back, all those accounts had turned, had left, and then she ended up getting laid off herself. So she lost her job at that company, lost a ton of clients as well. So there's a real cost to.
to not supporting the individual on leave.
Dee Davis (18:28)
Well, and I bet you there's some unspoken costs too, because I've witnessed some of this myself. Somebody takes a leave and it doesn't even matter what the leave is for. If they're gone for more than a few weeks, the team members that have to pick up the Slack start developing a bit of resentment. Resentment against the person that is gone, regardless of the reason that they're gone. resentment against management for
Doing this to them. Like you're saying, they're already working at capacity or very close to capacity if you've got a good team. And you can only pick up the slack for so long. There's gonna be balls that are dropped. it's just human nature. Everybody's willing to help out a little, but if you ask people to help you move too many times, they stop calling you back.
Beth Wanner (19:19)
Yeah, and same of like at there's
a certain age
where you can s you can't ask your friends anymore to help you move with pizza and a box of beer because we're old and our backs hurt. The same happens for when you get into more senior positions and and them taking leave. That's a lot of responsibility and weight to put on usually more junior employees that maybe don't know how to navigate that, have l now lost their support system and maybe mentorship of how to navigate that as well. And you're just setting them up for for failure. it it just doesn't work.
Dee Davis (19:49)
Yeah, absolutely. so how did all of these different pieces affect how you shaped your business?
Beth Wanner (19:58)
So like I said, thinking of all of those different pain points that a a company has when somebody in a key role says that they're they're going on leave, there's immediately the how do I cover this role. So whether it's internally, who's gonna step in, who's gonna take on the work, we thought about that pain point of how do you find that person and and make sure that
they can step into that type of role. So what is the profile of somebody that would step into that role? Everybody on our what we call our leave partner roster. So we have currently just over 200
Vetted professionals that are are part of our network and that spans all different types of roles, whether it's marketing, HR, finance, operations, engineering, you you name it. if they're in the kind of that knowledge worker space, that's areas that we want to be able to help and support with. But everybody on our roster has to have a minimum of 10 years of experience. I think we average closer to 15. We have individuals with 20 and 30 years of experience, even if the role that we're stepping in for doesn't require that much seniority
Because that's one of those pain points that we come back to. Is the people manager, whoever that individual is reporting into, this wasn't a role that they were expecting to train and onboard for. They're not expecting to do that hand holding and having to manage that new individual joining the team. That's often one of the cases against why we can't bring in somebody external, is because it's a 12-week leave, we don't have a month to spend ramping somebody up and training them. So that's why.
everybody has to have a a minimum of ten plus years of experience because that means that that's an individual that has the experience to be able to step in, get the lay of the land, integrate with the team and hit the ground running without needing that that extra hand holding. But if that more senior person meant that that company couldn't afford to have that person full time, that's where fractional really is an important part of our model, meaning that you're
contracting a fraction of that person's time. So whether it's 30 hours a week, 20, 25, down to 15 is kind of the the lowest that we do. We argue that having somebody more senior step into that role even at 25 hours a week has an outsized impact versus going more in junior at at 40 hours a week and it relieves that pressure from that people manager that they've got to train on board and and hand hold somebody. So that's one of the critical things that we've really thought through of
How do we make sure that we have people that can, get that lay of the land quickly, step in? They're experts at interim placements, meaning that they have done this several times before. They're building a career on what it looks like to step in, hit the ground running, and then step out cleanly.
We have transition templates that we've created of what is that important information that that leave partner needs to have to step into that role and how do we work with the person going on leave to make sure that their role is documented in a way that somebody can seamlessly step into it. And then on the reverse side, for the leave partner that's in that role, how do they do the same? So we have them write monthly updates, which can either go to the individual while they're on leave if they would like to.
still see what's happening. It's never being pulled into the work. You're reading it like a newsletter. You're not getting asked questions. Like I say, you're not getting pulled in. But if you want to completely unplug, that's great too. We would all absolutely respect that as well. We still write those updates. We just hold on to them and then in the end it gets compiled into their welcome back brief. So we're creating breadcrumbs of context for them. Again, thinking back to one of those pain points is when somebody is coming back. There's pain points on both sides. The individual is expected to
go zero to sixty again and and operate as if they haven't been out for several weeks or or months. And then the people managers expected to be able to catch them up on anything that they missed, which they might be removed from the day to day work. They might not actually know. They might forget. and the other is that they're
they're t they're busy with their own job too versus catching somebody up. So we take that on ourselves and create those breadcrumbs of context. So they're getting just the important parts of of what they missed. And we structure that into our engagements as well. So we talked about the transition period. We also focus on the real onboarding side as well. So best approach is when we can structure it so that your employee returning gets to slowly ramp up.
Well, our leave partner slowly ramps down and there's handover and crossover there. So we're working with them to hand over projects, to give them those breadcrumbs of context and help them feel really supported, because that leads to what we found to be the most, return on investment for ensuring retention is how supportive they feel in that re-onboarding period.
Dee Davis (24:41)
I know I've gone on vacation before and it's like the worst. You know, you spend two or three weeks trying to cram a bunch of stuff in to get it all done before you go, and you go for a couple of weeks and you come back and there's, a thousand emails and all this stuff that you've missed. It's so overwhelming to be out trying to relax and that's a situation where you're trying to relax. If you're on
a medical leave, a family leave, that is not a relaxing situation. your time and your energy are preoccupied with something else entirely, sometimes something very dire. and the additional stress that those people are under, I can't even imagine how much relief it would be to know that somebody is stepping in, somebody's taking care of it, and they're never going to replace you, of course.
It's never gonna be 100%, but at least it's covered. Somebody's in there doing it, and you're gonna find out everything that you need to know when you get back. And at least it's not like you're saying, zero to a hundred, on both ends. that's just exhausting. you mentioned that your network includes senior level people, marketing, talent, finance, product, customer, success, all these different areas.
and and most importantly, engineering, engineering firms, I hope you're listening. construction firms, you should also be listening. how do you decide which roles are a fit for mother cover?
Beth Wanner (26:10)
really it's anything in that knowledge worker type space, so in those broader buckets that that we went over, but really what
makes this a fit is is companies that are at least open to to remote or hybrid environments and that's where we can have somebody step in that's the best fit for them, not necessarily the person that's in their backyard. And that might be different for how you look at a permanent hire, which actually is a full guide that I I'm working on publishing that guides companies through how you should look at a temporary hire different
Than you look at at a permanent hire, you might have an environment where being in office really matters. But for an interim placement, again, you want somebody that is skilled at stepping into somebody else's shoes, their strategy, and moving that forward. And that takes a unique approach. And we also say that yes, everybody has that 10 plus years of experience, so it's not really the skill set.
That we're we're nervous about when somebody steps into a role. It's really more about over-engineering for emotional intelligence that you are stepping in for somebody at a critical moment. It's different than stepping into a vacancy, it's different than stepping into project work. You now have a dual responsibility of continuity and performance for the company and what the role requires, but also.
the professional reputation of the person that you're stepping in for and what that means. So we call it low ego work as well. The individuals that are part of our our leave partner roster are not at the stage of their career anymore where they're like, what else could I add to to my resume? What other stars can I earn? It's really about I have this skills and experience and I'm looking for
Almost ways to give that back or find more meaning in the work that I I've been doing already for for decades. And that can mean stepping in for somebody else and helping them through that critical moment, making sure that, their role comes back to as good of not better of a position, but keeping their name spoken in the room that they're temporarily not in, making sure leadership knows that this is their strategy. And why again, we want somebody more more senior, having at least that level of of experience stepping into this role is
Yes, they're they're stepping into somebody else's playbook and strategy, but there's so many things that you can't predict and you can't have a playbook for absolutely everything that may come up while somebody's on leave. So you also need the senior judgment of that they'll may need to pivot or change course on XYZ, but they're always doing that with that person who's returning top of mind and how they're going to hand them back something that they can be successful stepping back into.
your original question was of the types of roles that we we step in for, but that is ultimately why I say looking at who's stepping into an interim role differently is a different set of of skills and being a little bit more flexible on who your permanent hire might be, because somebody stepping in on an interim basis is not there to put their own stamp on it, and you want that skill set of somebody who can.
run with the continuity but pivot when they need to.
Dee Davis (29:27)
Well, I think you you mentioned an important term there. this is low ego work. So the people coming in, they're not coming in to make their mark or to make a name for themselves or to say, hey, hire me. That's not at all what these roles are. These are people that are coming in with the necessary skill sets. And I believe you cover US and Canada, if I'm not mistaken.
Beth Wanner (29:50)
Yes
Dee Davis (29:51)
they come in with the necessary skill sets and, like you say, execute.
Whatever is already happening. They're not coming in and saying, I have a better idea. Let's do it this way. That's probably a little hard sometimes to find people that are okay with just leaving their ego at the door a bit.
Beth Wanner (30:14)
Yeah, well and that's that is really why when we talk about pre-vetting the the skill set and experience i is is there. It's really about making sure that when we do meet with a new client, understanding what their specifics are i as must-haves, that's somebody that steps in. So we're making that match on that skill set level, but then that emotional intelligence piece
Is what sets apart a good leave partner and what makes it different from either finding your own contract or freelancer. Everybody who's joined that network that we have so far, those 200 individuals, has found us. We don't post roles publicly, we don't have a job board or anything like that. These are all individuals who have have heard about mothercover.
And understand the mission that we are on and our our why behind it, and have their own reason why that matters to them. So they don't have to be parents, but a lot of them are, and many of them have had their own leaves where maybe they didn't have a good experience themselves and they want to provide better for those who come after them, or they do have a good experience and they recognize that that's unfortunately more rare than it should be, and want to create more of that. So when we're meeting with a potential new leave
partner for the first time, that's the single most important thing that I'm listening for is is there why? Because there's lots of people that unfortunately are looking for work the these days that might say that they they want to step into these types of roles as a bridge to get back to to full-time work, which I wish we could provide opportunities for absolutely everybody, but we're really wanting to focus on on those who understand the importance and the weight that is going to be placed on them to step in for
somebody else and doing so as a partner, that we're never coming in as a Trojan horse that's gonna take that person's job or not make them look good. That really is our mandate. And so so much so that we have it actually baked into our our contracts of we can't take that role, that leave partner, it can't be offered the role of of the person that they're stepping in for unless it's parent-driven. So or or the individual who is on leave if they did happen to decide that they're they're not coming back. Or we've had great scenarios where the person returning
Is being promoted and they either need their leave partner to stay on until they're able to hire a permanent replacement, or they if they really love their leave partner and the leave partner enjoyed working for that client, they can offer them that position at that point. But we always want it to be clear up front. We are your partner, we are there to make you look good. We don't want your job, we're on to the next one.
Dee Davis (32:46)
Yeah, you're not the competition, and that's probably very important because I would imagine that that might be something that would cross a lot of people's minds of like, I don't know if I want to leave partner because what if they come in and try to take my job? that might make some people a bit nervous. Being
a working parent is hard enough. And we had a whole episode called Working Parents. I believe it was the beginning of season two.
of this podcast. We had an episode called Working Parents. If you haven't listened to it, I encourage you to listen to it. I realized much later after making that episode is I I focused only on certain aspects of being a working parent. Some of the challenges of the difference between school and work schedules and
getting the kids to where they need to go and daycare and holiday breaks and all these things that I experienced when my kids were young is what I was thinking about when I made that episode. What I realized later, as I talked to more people and I heard more stories like Beth's of women who were laid off from their jobs when their employer found out they were pregnant, who were dismissed from their jobs while they were out on parental leave.
or shortly thereafter. And I mean, just my jaw it drops every time I hear one of these stories because I cannot believe that this is still happening. And it is still happening. And we have another guest lined up who's going to share her story around that kind of a thing too. this stuff is so important for mothers, for fathers, for anyone. I've also heard stories of people who had to go take care of their sick parents.
And lost their job because their employer did not want to give them an extended leave of absence for that. And depending on where you live, that might be legal still. so the being a working parent is really, really tough without having to worry about all this other stuff. Or being a working child who has to take care of their parent. I was in that position twice with my mom and my dad.
I was fortunate that I didn't have those kinds of challenges. I had an employer that was very supportive and let me do what I needed to do and come right back to work. But not everybody has a story like that. So it's important if you're an employer to be thinking about how you can do this differently? How can you do this better? And it's better for you and it's better for your employees, and the likelihood that you're going to retain those good employees.
is better if you don't overwhelm them by just not having anybody do their job while they're gone. So what are some of the warning signs that a company needs help covering leaves?
Beth Wanner (35:31)
I think there there are a few things to keep track of that as few companies do. And one is in looking at the number of employees that that take leave because it it is predictable. So once you kind of have your your baseline of knowing how many employees take leave a year, you can start modeling that out and actually building that into your forecast. And for for creating a a budget for leave coverage, it could be as simple as setting one percent of your salary line.
Item aside, and that doesn't mean that you're providing external coverage for every single role or individual that goes on the there's there's a judgment that's part of that. Can the work be dispersed? Can things be paused? But does this person have a critical function and knowledge that
only they have or maybe it's a portion of their role because there's lots of individuals who may wear many different hats. Maybe some of their role others can can pick up without overburdening them, but maybe some of it can't. And understanding those and creating a contingency plan for that, which might mean again bringing in somebody fractional for only a portion of that person's role. So the critical elements don't get get fumbled.
So it doesn't necessarily mean that you're creating a blanket plan, but you have a contingency pool to to go through so that you can approach each leave with the thought and care that you need to.
So that that first one being look at the number of employees who take leave, then being able to actually track what happens to those employees after they return. When do they return and for how long? because there's an important stat that's out there about a third of women
leave their roles within 18 months of returning from parental leave. And it's not for reasons that many think, where we might just assume, okay, they've decided to be a stay-at-home parent and and that's just what they wanted to do. And sometimes we feel like that becomes a self fulfilling prophecy of
We didn't support their leave properly. We we didn't give them coverage. We didn't create a roadmap for them to return because we just assumed that they weren't going to, that parenthood is going to change them and that's what they're going to want to do. This study has shown, and the study was done by parentally, that for the third of women who don't return after parental leave or leave within 18 months.
Only about three to four percent of them become stay-at-home parents. And even that could be questioned about whether that was a choice or or something that they felt that they needed to do, whether it was return to office mandates, there wasn't the flexibility, they couldn't find care, all those sort of things. And for some it is a genuine choice, and that's great when it is a choice. But for the vast majority of that number, it was actually going on to competitors or other companies because they felt that they were not supported either before.
during or after their leave. And if they're returning to team members that are a bit resentful because they had to cover the leave or they're burnt out or things got dropped and they're just coming back to a mess, they're deciding it's easier to start fresh somewhere new than to dig themselves out of the hole that their parental leave created. So there's your your big retention issue. So being able to actually track and see who takes leave and for those who do take leave,
What is their tenure after taking leave? Do they stay beyond the two-year mark or not? So those two data points will tell you where you need to look and start having conversations about not just do we have a parental leave policy, but how is the policy actually put to in practice? And what is the experience of all the stakeholders that are involved in that?
A common thing that we also hear is whether you win or lose the manager lottery. So a lot of organizations have apprentive policy on paper, but how that policy is actually put into practice is left up to the interpretation of who that manager is at the time. So that whether you win the lottery is how was your role approached, how supported did you feel as you were going out, how was your role covered, and how were you supported on your return? And leaving that up to the interpretation of each individual manager.
where you can have very different experiences of your actual parental leave policy. So looking into your data will show you if you have one of those situations where it is really manager dependent on how that employee actually was supported or not.
Dee Davis (39:56)
That's an excellent point. I hired somebody about a year ago who had a great job and was moving forward, was right on the cusp of of getting a big promotion. And when she got pregnant and her boss found out, not that her boss was a bad person, but whatever the culture of that particular company was, did not get the promotion, went on leave and when
The leave was over. They told her she had to return to office full time, which It's not the way it was when she left for her maternity leave, and was not the plan when she was going back because it was a a change in policy and there was no flexibility on it. and I ended up taking them on because they're a fabulous person and doing a fantastic job. And I can't even tell you what an asset.
this company lost because they didn't support this person when they needed it the most. they're loss my gain. But that's it's a bit of a a lottery. Sometimes even if the policy is in writing.
It doesn't mean that it's going to be enforced that way. It doesn't mean it's going to be implemented that way. They did exactly what you just said. They left it up to the individual manager as to how it was handled. And it wasn't handled well. And they lost an excellent employee. So it's unfortunate and I'm certain not the first time that's ever happened.
Dee Davis (41:18)
Thanks for joining us and join us next week for part two of this awesome episode.
