Jennifer Liston-Smith on how companies can avoid losing highly qualified people after they have children.

Hi; I’m Jennifer Liston-Smith and I’ve been invited here to share my experience of working with individuals, managers, HR & Diversity teams and leaders on this subject. In 2005, I co-founded Managing Maternity Ltd (with client services director Anna Hayward) to help employers support and retain women and men through pregnancy and return to work.

For us, bridging that transition is a critical element in women’s leadership: this is a point at which many highly-qualified people are lost from the workplace, or from a chosen career path. Often, we leave because there is not enough quality part-time work, or because the culture at our workplace (e.g. valuing presenteeism, rewarding ‘face time’ rather than outcomes) is at odds with what we want to offer alongside motherhood.

But the working world and the workforce is changing, as is what we expect from our work. It’s not just a women’s or parents’ ‘issue’. There are some stats, insights and practical solutions here, from the investigation into the Transformation of Work led by the former Equal Opportunities Commission. (Let me know if you’d like more links like these: there are quite a few).

Christine’s brilliant accounts highlight some classic challenges of motherhood at work. Her ability to grapple with the complexity of the working motherhood agenda - and her willingness to resist worrying overly about what others think - are key skills!

I’ll be adding thoughts here as we progress, to sit alongside Christine’s insights. And I’ll be sharing links, best practice knowledge and practical pointers. Are there questions you’d like to raise? Please join in the conversation. Let’s make this a community of support, ideas, resources, tips, and encouragement for people who get the point of both career and motherhood, though we may be struggling with one or the other (or both) at times.

I’ve got two boys, aged 9 and 6, and 20 years’ experience in organisational consulting, training and coaching. I’ve practised the circus tricks needed to be who you want to be, and get things done, in both worlds. I know how easy it is to catch ourselves getting it wrong, instead of noticing how amazingly competent we are quite a lot of the time!

For now, to start with, some infrastructure: for clarification on your rights and benefits during pregnancy and on return, the definitive government guidance is here:

For employers: http://www.berr.gov.uk/files/file34286.pdfhttp://www.berr.gov.uk/files/file34286.pdf

...and for employees: http://www.berr.gov.uk/files/file34285.pdf