Maternity leave: the challenge of returning to work

After 16+ weeks spent welcoming the new member of the family, returning to the job requires some rehabilitation: getting back on track is never easy and can be a major source of stress. In a remote situation as well as when working on site, the manager must anticipate and prepare for this reintegration as best as possible.

Pre-leave offboarding: a good start for a better return

When one of your employees announces the big news to you, it is important to prepare for going on vacation with pragmatism. As we know, the time it takes for new employees to upgrade their skills is even more critical when it comes to short periods of work, especially when they are being replaced due to parental leave. As a reminder, the duration of maternity leave in France is 16 weeks minimum ; the person who will replace your collaborator temporarily must therefore be operational as quickly as possible so that the position does not lose productivity. However, it is not easy for an employee to have to improve their skills in just a few weeks. The employee must first become familiar with his new team, with his work environment in order to best assimilate the missions and tasks to his position. It therefore seems essential to put in place solutions in order to integrate and train the replacement in an optimal way, to maintain a real dynamic at the level of the position in question.

Preparing for your employee to leave on leave, by doing pre-leave offboarding, then makes it possible to gain efficiency in integrating the replacement. Very concretely, a few weeks before leaving on maternity leave, the manager can suggest to the employee to organize a transfer to her job. : what are the missions and tasks? What are the critical topics to master? Are there best practices and specific tools to master? By formalizing the knowledge and experience acquired by the collaborator, the manager can then transmit this valuable content to the substitute so that he/she optimizes his position. By benefiting from such transfer of knowledge, the new collaborator does not find himself having to”Reinventing the wheel“and, conversely, has a good overview of the reality of the position, to capitalize on the operational reflexes in place before its arrival. By preparing for departures on maternity leave, the company streamlines transitions and increases efficiency in onboarding the replacement.

But pre-vacation offboarding doesn't end there. A few weeks before the collaborator returned to her post, the substitute will also be able to formalize and transmit his knowledge relating to the position and activity of the company. The replacement having himself benefited from a transfer of knowledge, he will be able to reciprocally prepare for his departure by describing the current situation of the position, the new customers, the new challenges, etc. This real Transition of relay facilitates the reintegration of the employee ; her return will then be gradual so that she can get back to the rhythm by minimizing her apprehension about what will have happened during her absence. Organizing offboarding as part of a maternity leave replacement means choosing to reduce as much as possible the friction that can occur during these transitions. The company is gaining in productivity and employees can return to their jobs with peace of mind with a truly remarkable experience.

Reintegration into remote work: knowing how to use the right tools

In 2O21, teleworking became widely used in companies, managers and Human Resources Departments had to adapt their methods and tools to the new challenges involved in this new way of working. The management of parental leave, and in particular the reintegration of employees in a teleworking context was however able to allow the advent of new forms of communication and information transmission. While work”Remotely“has often been perceived as a source of problems for companies and their employees, it turns out that it would also have participated in the renewal of corporate communication. Indeed, new solutions allowing to capitalize, formalize and transmit the company's key subjects have been able to emerge. The integration or reintegration of employees through the transmission of numerous paper documents is not compatible with teleworking, so companies must turn to new tools and solutions that ensure the flow of information via a digital format. The management of departures on maternity leave must therefore also adapt to these developments. The transfer of knowledge in digital form then allows a return to the optimal position, even in a teleworking situation.

Indeed, as teleworking has greatly accelerated document digitization processes, it is no longer coherent to transmit knowledge and skills exclusively via paper documents. The trend then went to the use of so-called “hot” content, that is to say the use of video, podcasts or d. Moreover, the transfer of knowledge via hot content is much more effective than via written documents. These are formats that engage the person who views them more, making it easier for them to assimilate their content. At Komin, we have defined The “1-3-5” rule: 1 hot content is less than 3 minutes, it is 5 times more effective than a written document of several pages. The use of hot content in the management of maternity leave makes it possible to ensure and even optimize the transition between the employee and her replacement. Teleworking then certainly required the use of new tools, but this made it possible to reinvent offboarding and onboarding, in the case of maternity leave as well as in all other employee transitions.

Seamless career transitions for a remarkable employee experience

Managing professional transitions is a key issue in ensuring a good employee experience for its employees, especially in times of teleworking. Managing parental leave means dealing with at least 2 transitions. Indeed, you have to take care of the departure and return of the (new) parent collaborator, but in the event that the employee is temporarily replaced, you must be able to cover the onboarding and offboarding of the replacement.

These multiple transitions are both a risk and an opportunity:

A risk because a lot of knowledge and skills (of the young parent and/or their replacement) can be lost, which affects the productivity of the position and the team
An opportunity to re-energize and bring a bit of freshness to the position thanks to the perspective taken by the employee who is going on leave and the new perspective brought by his replacement.

Ensuring the transfer of knowledge during these transitions then makes it possible to minimize risks and optimize these opportunities. in order to boost the productivity of the position while ensuring a remarkable employee experience.

Among the many career transitions that a business can experience in a year, parental leave is not the easiest to manage. In addition, they are decisive for a company's employer brand. Indeed, It is a fairly delicate period, where stress can easily emerge and leave a lasting impression, so it is essential not to neglect it. If a lot of resources are allocated to the employee experience, but this transition is poorly managed, the employer's efforts will then be severely damaged, or even wasted. On the other hand, an employer who offers its employees tailor-made and optimal management of the start of maternity leave guarantees a remarkable employee experience. The (new) parent can approach this phase more calmly, even when working from home, since he knows that his replacement has everything he needs to evolve within the company and that the latter will give him an “exit inventory” on what happened and what he was able to learn during these 16+ weeks.

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