When an employee announces she will be taking maternity leave in the future, a company needs to make some adjustments. How can you support your employee while maintaining office-wide productivity?
Six Tips For a Seamless Maternity Leave Transition:
1. Get started on making adjustments early.
Develop a game plan early on, which gives you more time to troubleshoot and come up with creative solutions. If you need to adjust existing employees’ schedules or duties, it’s best to start early so they don’t become overwhelmed. Meanwhile, if you decide to hire a temp to cover during maternity leave, begin looking early to make sure you get a good candidate.
2. Make sure you have all the facts.
Do you clearly understand the employee’s job duties, so you can better plan to compensate for her absence? It may be helpful to speak both with the employee and her manager to get a clearer picture. While you’re at it, ask her colleagues and teammates who they’d recommend to cover for the position. If there’s no clear candidate, you may need to reach out to HR or a recruitment agency to fill the gap.
3. Hire a temporary replacement.
You have several options here to cover the workload. One way is to just redistribute the employee’s task among others on the team. However, this puts extra strain on them. Also, if the employee taking leave has a specialized position within the company, others might not know how to cover her duties.
If you decide to hire through a recruiter, make sure that agency clearly understands what the job requires. That will allow them to match you with a truly qualified candidate. It can also be helpful to have the temp spend some time with the rest of the team before they officially start so they can hit the ground running.
4. Ask for outside advice.
The right recruitment agency will have a wide range of talent for temp positions. They will also streamline the maternity process for your company. These agencies can help your business stay compliant with maternity leave regulations and navigate the nuances of short-term contracts.
5. Keep the transition smooth for everyone involved.
The best person to train the covering temp is actually the employee taking maternity leave. She understands the ins and outs of her job better than anyone, team members included. Don’t forget that this transition goes both ways. When the employee is back after her maternity leave, it can be helpful for her to spend some time with the temp to get back up to speed. This way there will be a smooth transition for both exiting and returning.
6. Maintaining contact with the employee with maternity leave.
When your employee goes on maternity leave, its important to keep communication channels open. Discuss in advance how often and in what method she would like you to stay in contact. If you maintain good communication and support, this will ease their returning transition.
Cover a Position With Ad-VANCE
Now you have a game plan for dealing with maternity leave, but do you have the perfect temp candidate to cover the position? At Ad-VANCE Talent Solutions, we are one of the Gulf Coast’s leaders in temp staffing and temp-to-hire. We have rosters of talent in dozens of fields including Administration, Hospitality, and more. Drop by our website to start the search for the perfect temp.