Article How to support working parents beyond maternity and paternity leave

Maternity, paternity and shared parental leave are essential foundations for supporting new parents – but they're perhaps only the first step.

For an organisation to retain top talent, you may want to look beyond those initial few months of support when a colleague becomes a parent.

Instead, it’s worth considering flexible, long-term strategies that recognise that family priorities are always flexing and changing.

The real challenges faced by working parents

As an employer, you’re likely already aware of the immense emotional, time, and financial pressures that new parents face.

As Martin Banerjee, father and financial planner for National Advice firm Origen, said on a recent episode of the Money:Mindshift podcast: ‘When you have children, they obviously zap quite a bit of that time, and they then suddenly take quite a bit of that wealth.’

This financial drain, due to a myriad of reasons (the expense of childcare being one of them) often becomes a major driver of career change – or could even lead to colleagues considering quitting to be able to cope.

As Ashley Quamme, a licensed marriage and family therapist, explained on the Money:Mindshift podcast, that she hears ‘alot of couples, particularly mothers, say that they feel like they don't have a choice.

‘Maybe it is the motherhood penalty. There is certainly that. But there's also just, like, the parent penalty, and I can validate and understand why it might feel like you don't have a choice,’ she added.

Where traditional parental leave policies could fall short

The value of maternity and paternity leave (or shared parental leave) is temporary – but family life is not. As Ashley also said on our podcast: a couple’s goals and priorities have to ‘shift and change’ over the decades of raising children.

Flexibility, therefore, can’t be a one-time policy. It’s a phase-based necessity.

And because raising a family is entirely different for every person, according to Ashley, parents need space to ‘do some experiments’ with work (and life) to find a balance that works for them – and their family.

Flexible working strategies for parents

This is the heart of the matter. We should look to move from policies that allow minimal flexibility to strategies that facilitate successful, phase-based changes, instead.

Here are three areas for you and your HR team to explore:

1. Structured flexibility

This involves giving employees defined freedom to adjust their working schedule, without compromising their professional identity, including:

• Phased transitions: you could offer phased returns to work. This can be more than just a lighter workload. Consider a temporary reduction in hours – for example, you could offer a six-month trial of a four-day week that has clear, defined success metrics and a pre-agreed re-evaluation date.
• True flexitime: you could help employees feel that they can flex their start and finish times around core hours for childcare needs, rather than feeling that they must be “visible" from 9 to 5.

2. Career pathways for parents

This is to help manage the lifelong shift in priorities. Consider official pathways for employees to step back and re-engage without penalty. This could include:

• Encouraging parental leave: this is a little-known unpaid leave option for eligible employees to take up to 18 weeks per child until their 18th birthday.¹ It’s separate from maternity or paternity leave, and there to help care for their child (or indeed for any purpose related to the child’s welfare).
• Part-time pathways: proactively identify roles that could be suitable for part-time workers, and advertise them as such.
• “Returnship" programmes: look at implementing structured, supportive programmes to help parents re-enter the workforce after extended caregiving breaks.

3. Building a family-friendly workplace culture

The best policies could fail if the culture isn’t supportive of families, and working parents.

• Manager training: equip managers to assess performance based purely on output, not on hours spent in the office or on visibility.

The risk of not investing in parents

If organisations are slow to realise the importance of these flexible approaches, it’s more than a missed policy opportunity – it could become a strategic risk for the business.

As a result, you could experience:

• Retention and talent loss: employees who can’t find the necessary balance might feel forced to quit or change careers. This results in the avoidable loss of experienced, high-performing talent.
• Increased costs: consider the cost of what the replacement, recruitment, and training costs associated with losing key team members could bring.
• Wellbeing and productivity: when parents are less stressed and financially secure, they’re likely to be more engaged, productive, and less prone to burnout. This is an investment that pays for itself.

Key takeaways: creating a resilient, inclusive workforce

Supporting parents isn’t a perk or a charitable endeavour. It’s a strategic investment in building a resilient, loyal, and diverse workforce – that put parents at the forefront, and not on the sidelines.

By moving beyond traditional leave policies and implementing flexible frameworks that encourage ‘experiments’ and selective success, you won’t just support your people. You’ll build a better business.