Parental Transition Programmes
Supporting talent at moments that matter
Giving birth, becoming a father, adopting – however you do it, starting or growing a family is one of the greatest transitions an individual can go through.
With that in mind, it’s not at all surprising that many people experience challenges when returning to work after parental leave.
Connor’s parental transition programmes provide a rich range of tailored support for both individuals and groups before, during, and after parental leave. In partnership with you, we can improve the experience of those starting or growing their family, increasing their engagement and your retention of these talented individuals. We also help you upskill line managers to fully support the transition that employees are navigating, ensuring that your people can balance their careers and their families with a sense of confidence.
“Met baby is the single best training & support package I have had in my 17 years in the job. The programme has assisted me with managing a promotion with part time working and work life balance. I’m delivering on all that is expected of me in my new role. To anyone thinking about accepting this offer of coaching I would say grasp it with both hands.”
As a result, you help your employees to feel valued and supported during an incredibly exciting (and sometimes daunting) transition for them; you enable them to contribute to your organisation’s success, and you can become an employer of choice for the many talented individuals out there who plan to have a family and a career, increasing the diversity of talent in your organisation.
Watch this short video where Julia Nickless, Connor’s Director of Parental Transition, explains the benefits of looking after your people going through parental transition and how we can help.
How it works
Connor’s design experts, facilitators, coaches and project managers can help you to plan, co-design and deploy your parental transition programme. Our focus is on creating a programme that’s effective, scales with your organisation, and makes a demonstrable difference. To get there, we follow four key principles:
- We work in partnership with you to identify the specific organisational challenges you’re facing, and co-create the best solution to address them.
- We build a programme that supports your new parents before, during and after their parental leave, to support them at every stage of their journey.
- We enable and develop line managers to best support individuals going on their parental journey.
- We ensure that measurement and evaluation are embedded into every programme we create, so you can demonstrate the impact of the programme, and continually optimise it for best results.
By working closely with you to build the programme, we can ensure that every employee feels like they receive a service based around their needs.
What does the programme include?
The precise makeup of the programme depends on the specific needs of your organisation and its people. Here are just some of the components that we can build into the programme to help your parental returners thrive, aligning our approach with your policies, culture and language:
- Personal coaching and one-to-one support delivered by professional parental leave coaches, to help your people navigate this hugely important transition and stay in touch with the organisation.
- Group networking and workshops to help prepare your employees ahead of their leave, or before their return. A group setting helps build a community of support and allows us to deliver support at scale, which can be built on in one-to-one coaching sessions.
Ongoing personal and professional development covering topics such as change, resilience and networking, to ensure your employees thrive upon their return to work.
Line manager support and training that equips line managers to fully support their reports before, during and after parental leave. Given the importance of an employee’s line manager to their happiness and success with your organisation, this element is crucial.
Helpful materials including journals, line manager training content, induction materials and more. We can deliver this on or offline depending on how you want to engage with your employees
“It’s been an absolute pleasure working with Connor. You have come into our unique culture, where possibly in the past we have not always been as receptive to coaching support, and provided a truly tailored programme that has seen a very positive uptake.”
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