Unexpectedly a key member of your team tells you she’s pregnant. How you handle this news is a key leadership moment.

Becoming a mother can be one of the most enriching transitions in a woman’s life. Handled well it can also bring great benefits to organisations.

Maternity coaching is about helping line managers make good choices. Its also about helping women to navigate this key transition both in their personal and working lives.

A cost of £278.8 million across UK business over the course of a year…

‘The cost to employers of women being forced to leave their job as a result of pregnancy and maternity-related potential discrimination or disadvantage was estimated to be around £278.8 million over the course of a year. These costs were largely due to recruitment and training costs and lost productivity and to SMP payments if the woman was on maternity leave when she left. However, women were more likely to leave their employer due to negative or possibly discriminatory experiences when they returned to work, rather than when pregnant, or on maternity leave. These costs do not include those where a woman lodged a claim with the ET, which may be considerable. The cost to British businesses over just one year due to the loss of mothers who felt forced to leave their job’

(Estimating the financial costs of pregnancy and maternity-related discrimination and disadvantage: Equality and Human Rights Commission report, 2016)

How much is it costing your organisation?

Outstand has undertaken extensive research into why this isn’t working.

We’ve found a few key activities completed before, during and after maternity leave make a crucial difference.

What’s key is that
– the organisation
– line managers
– and expectant mothers
are all part of the process.