5 Steps to Setting up your Maternity Coaching Programme

5 steps to setting up your maternity coaching programme

Setting up your Maternity Coaching Programme doesn’t have to be as complicated as it may seem.

Arranging the logistics in order to support those employees experiencing maternity at work is a simple process, and will ensure you provide adequate support during the 3 key stages of maternity. These are:

  1. Pregnancy at work and planning to leave
  2. Maternity leave and planning the return
  3. Early days of return to work

Setting up your Maternity Coaching Programme

At Parent and Professional, we specialise in Maternity Coaching and Parental Transition Coaching.

Here are our 5 simple steps to setting up your maternity coaching programme: 

  1. Identify the business drivers and business sponsorship

Involve senior management right from the start and identify a senior sponsor – someone who feels passionately about supporting women in the workplace. Agree a key business objective – for example ‘boost the family-friendly image of the company to attract talent’ or ‘boost retention rates of those returning from maternity leave’. Clearly communicating your drivers will help secure funding and keep the project on the business agenda.

  1. Find a facilitator

Consider if you have the time and expertise internally to offer group or 1 to 1 support. If not, especially if you have a large volume of pregnancies, it would be preferable to use an external coach, with expertise and experience in coaching through maternity. Delegates may feel more comfortable about discussing worries with an external. Your facilitator should be able to design workshops around the key support messages you would like to convey to your employees, as well as enable an environment where delegates feel comfortable about openly discussing their concerns. In addition, ensure part of the session is solution-focused and allow the sharing of practical tips.

  1. Identify your audience

Check your database to find out how many women in the business do you currently have who fall into the 3 different stages. If you currently have 4 or more at any of these stages, you have enough to form a group coaching session. If not, you may consider offering 1 to 1 coaching, or identify roughly when you know you will have several returners and find a date. If you are using an external coach, they should be able to provide you with appropriate marketing material for you to personally invite delegates as well as for you to use as generic advertisements on your website. This will ensure you clearly get the right audience at the right event as well as ensuring they are fully aware of the workshop objectives.

  1. Sort the logistics

Book a room which doesn’t have floor to ceiling glass walls overlooking the office – maternity coaching sessions can be emotional at times and delegates need to feel they are in a private and confidential environment.

Consider holding the workshop across lunch time to minimise business disruption. Allow 2-3 hours for each of the 3 stages and throw in a sandwich to encourage networking in a more informal environment.

  1. Evaluate and feedback to your sponsor

A standard evaluation form given out at the end will ensure you consistently collate immediate reactions to the workshop, which are important. Summarise the results and share with your business sponsor, including any key messages or concerns which came out that could be discussed to enhance the overall family-friendly culture.

P&P Coaching has been running maternity coaching programmes for clients for many years and will work closely with you to lead this process to make sure it runs seamlessly.

If you are interested in setting up your maternity coaching programme and would like some expert advice – please contact us today.

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