Dealing with an Unsupportive Boss Upon Return from Maternity Leave

For new mums, returning from maternity leave could be the most difficult phase of their careers. This season is filled with lots of unknowns and require enormous adjustments. Dealing with an unsupportive boss during this transition doesn’t make this any easier.

As new mums, we love to return to the roles/organisations we worked for before we went on maternity leave. We adopt this approach as a way of mitigating some of the unknowns during this season.

I have summarised the below points on steps to take to set expectation with an unsupportive boss upon returning from maternity leave.

1.      Bring your boss in on the changes you must deal with:

Have a formal conversation with your boss on the new dynamics of your life and how that may need to change the way you approach work. This clearly doesn’t mean you don’t value work, but you want to give your boss the opportunity to discuss and agree what works for you and for the organisation as you are adjusted to working and being a parent).

Also, I am not saying you give your boss every detail about your life outside work but be very proactive to let him know what matters/works for you now. For instance, if you stayed in the office above 5pm for meetings before, this might not be the case any longer as you need to leave on time to pick up your little one from childcare by 6pm latest etc.

If he/she doesn’t agree or proofs unreasonable, at least you know you have been respectful and professional about this and you have had the conversation.

Do not be anxious about how they react to this conversation as it is Your Life, Your Goals and what works for YOU!

2.      Time Schedule:

Set expectations on what times work for you now. If your company offers flexible working arrangement, take advantage of this and make it work for you. Remember through this journey you and your family come first.

For example; If you did commute into the office 5 days a week, this might not work for you anymore as you may need to have a day to work from home to either reduce commute time or drop you babies a bit later at child care and pick them up early.

If everything you do aligns with the organisations policies, your boss can do very little about it.

3.      Pushing Back:

Learning when to say NO is very difficult for most people but this becomes incredibly difficult for most if not every new mum. At this stage we are trying to make a statement that we can still deliver at our jobs just as we did before we had a baby.

With that, it is very important to know when to push back on work, timelines and even deliverables. Be very realistic on what you can do and when you can do it and articulate that to your manager.

If he/she doesn’t agree, then schedule time to have this conversation in more details and eventually help him/her prioritise your workload. Your manager needs to be able to speak on deliverables that are a high priority at any given time. Also help your manager by setting expectations on what needs to be done and how long it will take to complete the task.   

4.      Information Overload:

Sometimes as new mums, we are constantly reading about another mother’s journey and this can sometimes make us have apprehensions about how the world sees us etc.

Also, some bosses will deal with new mums based on what they are reading as well. We need to make sure we do not soak up to the negative narrative but write a narrative for ourselves.

Please let me know if you have had any unsupportive bosses upon return from maternity leave and how you have managed the situation.