Writing a great parental leave plan

The first time I went out on parental leave, I was so worried. How would my team get along without me for 3 months? And what kind of work would pile up during my absence that I’d have to face coming back, while also trying to juggle a brand new baby?

It’s important to acknowledge — this is a very lucky problem to have in the US, where parental leave is still a luxury. But even at great tech companies with industry-leading leave policies, I talk to a lot of parents-to-be who are worried about how to manage their leaves, especially in a time where work is shifting overall. How can I make sure that my team is doing well without me and give myself a good job to come back to?

Writing a solid parental leave plan that I could discuss with my manager and team helped me regain a sense of control. (I went on to have 2 more babies, so I got plenty of practice writing leave plans 🙂 )

What worked best for me?

1. Mentally reframe my parental leave plan as a way to build more team capacity. Instead of letting my team drag in “survival mode” while I’m out, could I make this a way for my team to operate better and set us up for more capacity when I get back? Could I match the open tasks with people who’d be excited about doing them, and empower them to run with problems? This meant that not only would people on the team grow, but that I’d come back to a job that I could uniquely do.
   

2. Figure out coverage for each major workstream.

   1. For any workstream, who would make the decision? Could I divide all of them among my peers so that every item would have a clear owner but no single person would get too much added work?

   2. Who would do 1:1s with my team? I usually alternated my manager and a peer doing biweekly 1:1s. That way, my manager could build a closer relationship directly with my team and help with career qs, and my peers could be an xfn mentor and supporter who could unblock anything tactical. Alternating meetings also reduced the time burden on any one person.

   3. As a final check, I’d go through my calendar to make sure that each meeting or work-item had someone to participate on my behalf and own the meetings, or clarity that we’d pause or depri the area entirely.
      

3. Preparing for events in advance. What are the big events while I’m out (performance reviews, major external conferences, etc) and how will I interact with those? For performance reviews, I left feedback for peers before I went out on leave. For performance discussion sessions for my team, I’d either join from my leave or I’d prep my manager to represent in my absence.
   

4. Be clear about how I wanted to interact with the team while I was out. What decisions should they make without me? Which should they text me for, like major hiring decisions or org changes?
   

5. Arranging how I’d come back. It sounds small, but even something like returning on a Thursday rather than a Monday was helpful, giving me a bit more of a ramp as I tried to figure out childcare, commuting, breastfeeding, etc. Nowadays I see leave policies that offer 50% work for 2 weeks as people ramp back in, which has been really helpful for folks on my team to get reacclimated to work.
   

Of course, even though my written parental plan felt “organized”, it didn’t cover the hardest part — figuring out how I’d actually adapt to my job again with a new baby and an exhausted body.

I thought I’d come back to the same job with the same habits, just with a baby at home. Instead, I had to figure out how to be more ruthless with my time and clearer in my priorities. I had to figure out where I needed to take over work I had delegated versus where I had capacity to start new things. And over time, I had to fight the idea that work and parenthood are always in opposition, and keep in mind all the ways they work well together for me.

Writing a leave plan gave me a much-needed sense of control, but what made it all work was the support of all the folks around me. With their support and a clear leave plan, they could all happily stretch a little more without feeling overwhelmed. That gave me the space and flexibility to come back to a great job with plenty of room for growth.