How companies supporting their employees during the maternity period.
2 min read
A study by Utah University suggests, that if companies support flexibility and family-friendly arrangements they can
increase employees retention by 79.8%
achieve higher employee engagement by 71.9%
increase productivity by 65.2%
improve recruitment success/higher quality candidates by 60.1%
achieve a more diverse teams by 50.1%
achieve more women in high levels of leadership by 47.2%
increase profitability by 33.7%
When taking into consideration, that on average 85% of working women worldwide will be pregnant at some time during their career, companies should consider implementing the following points in their internal policies.
Maternity / Paternity leave
In a 2019 published report by UNICEF, the worlds richest countries were rated according to how family friendly they are. With the term family friendly is meant, that countries actively support parents in taking care and creating a bond with their children. At the bottom of the UNICEF reports list was the USA with a non-fixed parental leave policy in all states. Top of the list was Estonia, with a fully paid maternity leave of 85 weeks. Globally the average maternity leave is 29 weeks and average paternity leave is 16 weeks (status 2019).
Remote Working / Flexible Work Options
Companies can support their employees during the maternity period by offering remote working and flexible work options. However, the Harvard Business Review emphasises, that managers should normalise flexible work options as ‘rights’ and not special privileges, since employees may otherwise fear being perceived as not committed or fear other career disadvantages.
KIT days
By offering KIT (Keep In Touch) days a company can support their employees faster re-entry to work, by keeping them up to date on the latest company developments, as well as offering them a personal exchange with her managers on how they are doing and how they could be supported for coming back to work.
Lactation / Pumping Rooms
UNICEF recommends in their 2019 published policies report ‘Are the world richest countries family friendly’, ‘that mothers can breastfeed both before and after they return to work by providing such things as guaranteed breastfeeding break, places to pump and store milk and quality childcare nearby’, as well as to ‘build the capacity of health professionals to provide breastfeeding support in hospitals and communities.’ Many companies (Start-ups & Family owned business) such as Tesla, Google, Facebook, Yale University and Abbott offer their employees lactation rooms, as well as lactation consulting by health care professionals. Recent studies have proven that not only health benefits for our whole healthcare system are thereby achieved (13 billion US dollars could be saved if 90% children would be exclusively breastfeed for 6 months), but the motivation, satisfaction and productivity increased which in long and short -term benefits the company.
Support System
In a 2021 published study regarding ‘The Interactive Effects of Coworker and Supervisor Support on Prenatal Stress and Postpartum Health’ finding suggested, that supportive co-workers and supervisors can be a stress-reducing resource. This not only reduces stress in pregnancy but was associated with long-term decrease in postpartum depression and quicker physical recovery after birth. This support can for example be achieved launching a Working Parents Support Group in your company.
Child Care
In a 2021 published article by Forbes Magazine on ‘How to Support Working Parents’ child care is one of the main mentioned points to set up your parent employees for success. Not only businesses lose on average 1,150 US dollars each year per working parent in reduced revenue and in extra recruitment costs, because of the lack sufficient child care for children under the age of 3 but parents loose an average of 3,350 US dollars yearly.
By implementing these points, companies can not only support their employees, but transform the organisations performance.