An employee is pregnant. What to do if you have no experience with this?

“I am the first in my organization to have children. They want to help me, but they have no idea what I am entitled to and what I might encounter. I have to reinvent the wheel myself: from breastfeeding room, to leave, to monitoring hours. That feels very lonely.”

More and more start-ups are maturing. Their employees grow along with them. The tireless twenty-something becomes a thirty-something with the same ambitions and a family. The pressure on the employee is increasing, but the company has no idea; no policy and no knowledge to grow with the needs of the employees. There are no examples, no precedents and no room for breastfeeding. There is often a hungry work culture, with the limitlessness of young dogs. But what does your employee actually need in this new phase?

How do you ensure that your employee, as a new parent, does not feel left out?

Your employee loves his/her company and work and is still ambitious and talented. Only the work-life division has shifted. The working parent feels alone and left out of the company.

Pronouncing it is difficult, because it actually feels like not being good enough anymore. Doubt sets in. “Do I still fit here?” The search for a new company that better meets the new work needs of the working parent has begun, without any real attempt to find a suitable solution first. Another talent with senior experience leaving the company.

Prevent the departure of working parents

Shame, right? If your staff feels alone in the quest for working parenthood and may feel compelled to do something different. This is at the expense of knowledge, talent and therefore money. Especially if you are a relatively young company, it is important to put parenting on the agenda.

If your employees have children, it will affect your corporate culture. You have to do something with that, but what?

Tips for developing a parent-friendly policy at growing organizations

• The most important tip: Have a conversation. Make sure your employee feels seen and heard. Don't wait until you get a question, but ask what is needed and make sure it is properly arranged. Start a conversation with both your female and male employees.
• Go too talking to your team. Make sure they also know what is going on, make parenting a topic of discussion and not an individual's problem. This is how you create equality and openness in the workplace. And everyone understands why maternity leave is not a holiday, why you can work less overtime, and why you prefer to meet at 4 p.m. rather than at 5:30 p.m. And that this does not have to be at the expense of quality.
• Make it a policy. That may sound difficult and you think: “We will solve it ourselves if it arises.” But as your employees mature, your company also matures. To avoid arbitrariness it is important to record things; Which employer do you want to be? What conversations are you having? What are the rights and obligations of you and your employees? This way you make it clear for your managers and for your employee. They know what benefit they have from you as an employer.
• Give your employee the online course the Soft Landing. In this way you offer her the knowledge and understanding that you may not yet have yourself. And you reduce the chance of failure. It is a good basis for your return policy.

There is a good chance that several babies will be born within your growing organization. What extra step do you take to retain talent? We are happy to give you a helping hand to pave the way. And bring your company towards maturity.

See how we can help or send an email to info@parentsinc.nl for a no-obligation consultation.