From Return to Progression: The Next Step in Parental Support | ECC

Why careers stall after maternity leave, and what HR can do about it

Careers often stall after maternity leave because the conditions around a person's progression change, even though their capability doesn't. Visibility drops, stretch work dries up and managers make assumptions about ambition. Working parents come back, perform well and stay. They just move up more slowly than before.

That's the central finding of From Return to Progression: The Next Step in Parental Support, a 2026 report for HR and Talent leaders from The Executive Coaching Consultancy (ECC). It argues that support for working parents needs to go beyond retention and a smooth return, to protecting long-term progression.

Is retention after maternity leave enough?

Retention tells you someone came back, it doesn't tell you whether their career is still on track. An employee can return from maternity, paternity or shared parental leave and stay for years while their progression slows.

"Return rates and retention tell you someone came back. They don't tell you whether they're still heading where they were before," says Emma Spitz, Master Coach and Co-CEO of ECC.

The cost tends to surface years later as a high performer resigning, a gap in the succession pipeline or a less diverse leadership team. Each one gets treated as a separate problem.

Why does progression slow after parental leave?

The ECC report describes a self-reinforcing loop. Managers, often with good intentions, offer returners less stretch work and less visibility, and assume their ambition has changed. Returners notice, adjust their expectations and stop putting themselves forward. The organisation reads that as proof it was right.

No single decision causes it. That's why it's hard to spot from the inside.

Wider research points the same way. Institute for Fiscal Studies analysis shows the gender hourly wage gap is over 10% before a first child and widens to 33% twelve years later.[1] In a US experiment, mothers were rated as less committed and less promotable than otherwise identical candidates.[2]

Does maternity coaching improve progression?

ECC's Closing the Partnership Gap research tracked 279 women across 18 international law firms with UK offices, all of whom received ECC's Parental Transition Coaching between 2017 and 2023. Using public professional records only, it followed their careers to February 2026.

19% of the coached women made partner. The Law Society benchmark is 13% for women and 28% for men.[3] So the coached group reached partner at nearly one and a half times the benchmark rate for women.

ECC is clear that this is an observational study showing association, not causation. What it does show is that a returner's trajectory isn't fixed, and that progression after maternity leave can be tracked for years.

What should HR measure after parental leave?

Most organisations measure return rates, retention and wellbeing in the first months back. The ECC report argues that progression can diverge long after that, so HR needs measures that run for years. It proposes five:

• promotion velocity compared with peers at the same level
• allocation of stretch work and client exposure
• progression three and five years after return
• changes in potential ratings, and whether they reflect performance or perception
• leadership and partnership outcomes compared with comparable colleagues

How do line managers affect a smooth return to work?

Line managers decide who gets stretch work, visibility and sponsorship, so they shape a returner's progression more directly than any policy. In ECC's coachee feedback, 87% named their manager as the most important factor in a smooth return to work. 

What should coaching for working parents include?

ECC's approach rests on three principles. Coaching starts before leave, not on return. It carries on well beyond the first weeks back, into the period when decisions about stretch work and promotion get made. And it coaches the line manager as well as the returner. ECC's Parental Transition Coaching runs in four phases, from four to eight weeks before leave to twelve months after return.

Does this affect fathers too?

As more fathers take extended paternity or shared parental leave, the same pattern is starting to show.

"I see two things happen with dads on extended leave," says Paul Neville, Executive Coach at ECC. "Either he is concerned that his manager subconsciously starts questioning his commitment or ambition. Or he wants to properly share parenting with his partner, looks for a senior male role model at partner level who's made that work, and can't find one."

Read the full report

From return to progression sets out the evidence, the mechanisms behind stalled progression, five ways HR can protect returner progression and the full Closing the Partnership Gap methodology.

References

1. Institute for Fiscal Studies (2016), Gender wage gap grows year on year after childbirth as mothers in low-hours jobs see no wage progression.

2. Correll, S., Benard, S. and Paik, I. (2007), Getting a Job: Is There a Motherhood Penalty?, American Journal of Sociology.

3. Law Society of England and Wales (2025), Annual Statistics Report 2023: top-line report.