Returning to the workplace after having a baby is really difficult for parents, finding the balance between your child and work commitments can be almost impossible. Not to mention the sacrifices you might have to make to return to the office.
With this in mind, Careers After Babies conducted a survey interviewing 848 mothers on what happened to their careers after having children, revealing some astounding stats. As a result, Careers After Babies has launched a new accreditation which will enable organisations to transform their business to support and encourage parents returning to work.
Revealed: 98% of women want to come back to work after maternity leave – but only 13% say it’s viable.
The survey delved into four areas – maternity leave, returning to work, career progression and what women actually want. One of the most interesting findings was that more than half of the women said that they would choose to work four days or more given the option. Also, despite 98% of mum’s wanting to go back to work after having children, only 13% think it’s viable on a full-time basis and of the 24% that tried to go back full time, 79% ended up leaving because they couldn’t maintain their full-time job alongside having a baby.
The research also revealed that many businesses are doing the bare minimum when it comes to maternity leave. The legal requirement is for women to be able to return to the same job when they take less than six months maternity leave or to a similar job if they take more than six months. 71% of women in senior positions took less than six months off in order to try and keep their jobs, 15% of women returned to different jobs in the same company but 57% ended up leaving their organisation within two years.
Career progression was also found to be impacted disproportionately by maternity leave, as there was a 32% reduction in managerial roles after women have children and a 44% increase in admin roles, with many women stating that it’s easier to find flexible work at a junior level. This points to a huge loss of talent at the management level of organisations and this is likely to be a huge contributor to the 14.9% gender pay gap.
Careers After Babies launches in response to this, helping parents to return to their original role in the workplace after maternity
A new accreditation has been developed by Jess Heagren, mother of four, ex-Financial Services Director and author of landmark report Careers After Babies: The Uncomfortable Truth. The accreditation enables businesses to transform their ways of working to become world-class employers of working parents and caters to businesses of all sizes.
Accreditation
If an organisation has more than 250 employees and is looking to fully understand and address all issues faced by working parents, the Careers After Babies accreditation is for them.
Certification
This option is if an organisation is smaller (up to 200 employees) and looking to show that they are a proud small business doing the right things for working parents and clients. Careers After Babies have partnered with baby-loss charity Tommy’s to bring small business free access to their Pregnancy and Parenting at Work resource, designed to support their employees through any pregnancy journey, from planning and parenting to complications and losses.
What is accreditation and why should your business be accredited?
Careers After Babies Accreditation is where policy, process and practice come together. The 4-stage process makes it easy for businesses to understand all of the complex issues faced by working parents, where they are at present and how they overcome them.
Businesses could be part of a new and exciting movement to create a cohort of world-class employers of working parents. This will help by stopping skilled and experienced parents leaving the workforce, and stay with their employer.
Careers After Babies has already attracted 10 launch partners, including Paramount, Correla and global marketing agency IMA-Home, these organisations are eager to help their parents in the workplace.
Catherine Chatfield at Paramount stated ‘“We are excited to be embarking on this journey with Careers after Babies to positively challenge our thinking, workings and processes and push forward with our goal of gender equity here at Paramount. We are committed to always seeking opportunities to improve, adapt and we’re excited to be part of this much-needed push for change.”
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