Parental Transition: Practical Plans

Director and Parental Transition Coach, Helen Ilsley, shares insights about balancing careers with parental responsibilities for working parents. It’s crucial for managers to reassess their role in tackling systemic gender imbalances in leadership roles by deeply understanding the people we work with. 

While outright sexism is not something that many of you are going to encounter these days, you might well experience some well-intentioned managers who see you in a different light now you’re pregnant. Here are some tips from ECC’s founder Geraldine, to avoid being “mummy-tracked”.

If your parental leave is fast approaching, consider laying the path for your return. Follow these tactics on goals, priorities and relationships.

These days, those wanting to combine work with parenthood or other significant personal commitments do have more choices – albeit they can sometimes be tricky to set up. This article covers the various kinds of flexible work that may be on offer, the key things to think about and how to approach your employer to ask for it.

Sam Akinluyi, father and Executive Coach, considers his experience of having to prioritise between family and career. Whilst a large percentage of men choose their careers, Sam asks, can fathers ‘have it all’?

In this particular story we sit down with Sam from ThinkBox to discuss his journey of sharing parental leave with his partner

We have coached thousands of expectant and new parents as they go through this important transition. Here are some of our favourite checklists, tools and tips to help you manage this transition.

In this real stories interview we sit down with Sarah from Reckitt to discuss how she balanced her career with the new responsibilities of becoming a new parent to twins.

Figuring out the problem of childcare and subsequently handing over your child into someone else’s care may be one of the hardest emotional transitions you might go through. In this article we discuss not only the practicalities of the different childcare options, but also some of the critical decisions you may want to consider early on.

Emma Spitz, Executive Coach and Director at ECC, shares her advice on how to proactively reconnect with colleagues after leave from work. She also shares tips on how to identify valuable mentors and sponsors and the benefits of creating a ‘network map’.

Samantha explains how her own parental journey could have been smoother if she had understood more about the emotional reactions she was likely to experience. She interviews Executive Coach, Jessica Rogers, who describes how the Change Curve can help make sense of and manage change.

In this video, new father Robert Simmons, a lawyer from Allen & Overy LLP, answers questions about how he communicated his decision to take Shared Parental Leave. He also gives advice to other parents about to share their news.