- Maternity leave can be a stressful time for the new mother
- Being away from the office and out of touch with all business activities can bring on stress
- Providing the new mother remote access can enable them to keep in touch and yet still spend time with the new baby
- There is a danger that the new mother will login too often but her supervisor can make it clear that she should not be logged in all day, every day
- New fathers on Paternity Leave can also keep up the business through remote access
- Even if new fathers cannot have Paternity Leave, they should be given the option to work remote and time shifting their work to help support their wife and child
There has been much said and written about including women in the workforce and equality of pay. One of the problems that has not been addressed is time away from a business for maternity leave. It is a fantastic benefit for a new mother to have an extended time with her newborn. That time away does create a problem both for the business and the new mother.
When an employee is away from the office for an extended, falling behind in all the activities becomes a significant problem. Some new mothers come back to the office before they would like to just to make sure they don’t fall too far behind. There is a way that these significant employees can keep up and could even extend their maternity leave.
Staying in Touch
Giving the new mother remote access and having here check in on a regular basis keeps her up on the activities and still gives that oh so important extended time with the new child. Reading email every 2-3 days can go a long way to staying up on activities. A 3 week maternity leave can be doubled to 6 weeks without too much impact.
Potential Significant Problem
There is a significant danger with this plan. It is possible the new mother will end up spending too much time online keeping up with the activities. Her supervisor can easily fix that problem by making it clear she is not expected to be checking email daily. With the permission of the supervisor, the new mother can relax (and catch up on sleep) by logging in a couple of times a week.
This will also give the new mother peace of mind that she will not be ignored and forgotten in the office and when the next promotion comes up.
Paternity Leave
The same option also applies to new fathers. Many companies are now providing paternity leave and more and more fathers are taking advantage of it. I would have loved to be off after the birth of my children!
Being able to stay in touch remotely during a paternity leave would have been awesome!
For those companies that won’t or cannot offer paternity leave, allowing the new father to work full-time remote and shift their schedule will be a great benefit. There won’t be a need to replace that employee temporarily and the new father can stay with his family. Everybody wins! Except for the supervisors that are fixated on in the office working only.