To ask about your return to work experience post maternity leave

[StayIt]

This probably isn't an AIBU but I'm really interested in how women have been treated following their return to work. I think my working situation has probably not helped (I moved department during maternity leave) and I work predominantly with men. The whole return, particularly with covid, has been stressful and I'm still trying to get things sorted six months on. I'm starting to genuinely feel discriminated against but I think it is lack of understanding and consideration rather than directly trying to make things awkward for me.

Have others had issues? Is this a covid thing? A common issue? I would like to know how others have been treated because if it isn't just me there is something fundamentally wrong in how we treat women returning to work. I don't feel that more stress should be added at an already particularly stressful time.

Apologies if this is badly worded, I'm fairly thick skinned but this is now starting to get to me.

I mention predominantly working with men as it is clear they haven't dealt with a return from maternity leave in a long time.

I’d need more info op what’s happening?

Things I found difficult - time and suitable storage for expressed milk.
Lack of understanding around how emotional I would feel initially.

It's more that I haven't had training for my new department. I haven't been given the right equipment or anywhere to store it. I haven't been told what I am entitled too. My pay is wrong. My hours were wrong. I don't know anyone particularly. I'm trying to sort things but it is slow progress.

I’ve been back (although WFh) for a month and it’s awful. Last week I was told that the guy who’s been doing my maternity cover is better than me so they’re keeping him in my job. They’re currently trying to find somewhere else to “slot me in”. I feel humiliated and totally broken.

I’m sorry you’re finding things tough too OP. It’s so bloody hard.

Yes I found it hard. I was expected to work a full normal day from day 1 with no refreshing of skills, knowledge, procedures, policies, etc, including managing junior staff members. Due to intercurrent health issues (I was unwell most of my mat leave) I had been off for 16 months and hadn't been able to use any kit days

OP do you work for the NHS by any chance?

I work for a massive company that has lots of women returning from maternity though I did work in a male dominated team.

Things they did well -
Made me feel like I'd been missed
Gave me lots of time to settle back in without expecting me to be up to speed asap, they knew it would take a couple of months to get back in to it
Let me reduce my hours to work 4 days
Flexible about hours eg let me start and finish a bit earlier for nursery runs etc
Pushed me to do a secondment that led to a promotion soon after my return

Things they did badly
Tried to make me accept a 'poor performance' pay rise 'because I'd not been here' when company guidelines and the law say if you've been off on mat leave they have to give you an average pay rise or prove that is what you would likely have got (and I always previously got above average or average). I had to print off advice from citizens advice and refuse to accept it. Eventually they changed it even though they said it 'didn't seem right'...!
The IT treat you as a new starter when you've had that long an absence, but no one seemed prepared for it, had to get everything rebuilt and reauthorised which took weeks.
My job is technical and no one had thought to keep a note of all the technical changes for me, some of which had been discussed in meetings with no notes emailed etc which caused me to make some mistakes. No body minded but it seemed weird to me to say 'oh well never mind, ffs wasnt here's rather than to make someone responsible for updating when when I was back so that no mistakes were made. Someone should have told me what I didnt know
General comments from various people about being 'only part time', people constantly forgetting I wasnt part time, a manager slagging off part time 'women' as making it inconvenient for him, another manager telling me I was really expected to fit 5 days work into 4 days. I think this has got better since, whether this is due to a change in culture or people have just got used to what hours I do and accept that actually I am flexible and work hard, I am not sure
Complete in comprehension that someone with a 10 month old may still breastfeed and be unable to go out in the evenings. I was asked to go on a work trip for a few nights (not that usual for me) when I returned and had to turn it down as the baby still fed 3x a day from me and refused bottles and I was worried my boobs would explode. Likewise people were surprised when I had to decline evening things

I work for a firm that regularly gets voted as being one of the most inclusive and family friendly top firms in the UK but like everything, the policy is only as good as the culture and the line manager implementing it

I found it really stressful and still do 1 year on.

I am a nurse ( office based role though not ward) the helpline I work on is 24/7 service 7 days a week. I asked for set days to accommodate nursery and this was refused. My partner used all of his annual leave booking days I was down to work. I am now working 12.5 hour shifts 2x per week. Again I'm refused set days so have to pay for my son to attend nursery 2 days per week but a lot of the time I am put down to work weekends so it's a waste of money . They have always been shit . They told me if I increase my days to full time which would be 3 long days they would give me set days no problem. Yet all this time they have been saying no no one has set days .

@ChelseaCat my GM thought my maternity cover was better too at the job I had with my first baby, it was humiliating even though the other business units I worked with were very happy I was back. You are being treated terribly and I think it is illegal, I'm sure my GM was pissed she couldn't just move me somewhere else at the time.

Yep its awful I was subtlely screwed over after each maternity leave (NHS) ....eventually things got sorted in some way but it wasn't easy. Going part time had implications on career opportunities, getting back my own role was difficult and then I ended up with other more tedious tasks to do that weren't in my original role...but couldn't really argue. have a look at ACAS and Pregnant then Screwed. I didn't complain, I found it was all very subtle and difficult to prove that it just wasn't worth the stress. My boss had a way of gaslighting anything I said and HR were useless. That's all a bit negative but just to tell you you're not alone.. Hope it gets sorted for you. Good luck...

I'm sure the pandemic is making things worse, but yes returning to work after maternity is tough.
I think most women's confidence is likely to be low as they haven't done the job for at least 6 months. But don't want people to say 'baby brain' so are maybe afraid to ask.
Change of boss / team / colleagues.
New projects / policies / technology.
How much effort was made to keep in touch, eg I always suggest anyone on maternity is invited to Christmas do, as I remember being really hurt that no-one bothered to ask me.
Returning from maternity is a bit like starting a new job, there should be a (re)induction programme to bring you back up to speed and regular catch ups, not just left to get on with it.

I've been back at work two months - I had an extended maternity leave (18 months) but it's like I've never been away. Quite literally in some cases as I've just picked up stuff I worked on before I went off and carried on. WFH has helped a lot in terms of flexibility, particularly with nursery. It's worked well for me as it's been good to hit the ground running; I know some people have struggled with not having anything to do post-maternity and feeling like a bit of a spare part. It can be stressful and long hours and I've had to change the way that I work but I think that's been quite helpful in terms of getting a better work/life balance. I've also had a number of conversations since I've been back about promotion which didn't happen pre-maternity and I've been pleasantly surprised by.

I had to take a step down to access any kind of part time hours, which meant a massive pay cut (not just the pro rate kind).

The team were good, my new boss was lovely, very supportive. But it was clear that within the wider team I was now ‘just a mum’ so never allowed to climb. I left after a couple of years and did my own thing, never looked back.

@ChelseaCat that is awful and I would certainly be taking that further with HR. So sorry for how you’ve been treated!

I found it very difficult when I returned, I am now permanently WFH and joined a new dept in a brand new role, it’s been very isolating and lonely. My boss has been understanding and hasn’t pushed me too hard, and have allowed me to pick my own hours, within reason! I’m about 9 months in and only in the last couple of months have I felt like I’m adding any value to the team.

I wasn’t impressed when I first came back because I had pretty much no contact during my MAT leave and my line manager gave me no help to get the IT stuff ready.

Thank you @Lemonlemon88 - I’m sorry you’ve experienced this too

Mine has been great, really normal.
I had 15 months off in total and it’s been weird WFH. But everyone is lovely and nothing has changed really (apart from Covid).

I’ve gone back 4 days instead of 5 but not noticed any adverse reactions. I’m not working over my hours and so far, so good.

I’m senior HE management, so the sector probably helps, we have a lot of senior women (female VC, female Dean etc).

The only issue I have is my brain is mush from tiredness and I feel my productivity is pretty shit. But it will come back, it’s getting better each week. I’ve been back 4.5 months.

I've returned back to work after 12 months maternity leave and found it really difficult. My manager is fantastic, as are my team and they've been incredibly welcoming (as much as you possibly can in a fully wfh lockdown situation). But I've still really struggled. I went back to the same job, same team but I think my energy levels are just lower than before, and working and getting back up to speed remotely has been difficult anyway. Also, I was really looking forward to getting a change of scenery after the year off and feel like I've missed out on something that was so important to me. My team didn't even realise I might have felt like that until I mentioned it, as they're all fairly happy wfh every day.

You say you feel like you've been discriminated against. Was something upsetting said to / about you? Or could it be that people just don't realise how difficult returning after maternity leave has been for you?

Are you currently seeing your colleagues in person or fully working from home?

I've come back to a new boss, new team, new office and new role.
On the whole, everyone has been quite welcoming but I've struggled with:
-low confidence
-remembering things
-adapting to working at home
-change in seniority level

And as I'm part time, I often feel like a temp

Almost identical experience to @FFSAllTheGoodOnesArereadyTaken (wonder if we work for the same company!)

Biggest ones for me are being expected expected cram 5 days work into part time hours and the comments such as "why would you be entitled to that bonus when you weren't even here". Before mat leave for my first DC, I had consistently outperformed every year and had been given a larger than average annual bonus as a result. 6 years in a row. The bonus awarded to me a month before I started leave, I was given average and told that they couldn't award me above average because it wouldn't be fair to the people who would be working when I was on leave if I got more. The policy is that they award you the same amount that you would have been entitled to if you weren't on mat leave but they got away with this because it's down to individual manager.

Other things - constantly not being told of technical changes, was told "it was discussed in a meeting last Monday" as if I could have known about it on my day off! People arranging training and meetings on my days off and booking them into my diary, only to get annoyed with me when I'd tell them I wasn't working that day. "Can't can't dial in from home?" - no, it's a non-working day, I'm not being paid that day! And constant comments about 'part-timers' and being made to feel as though I'm lazy for not working 5 days, despite the huge paycut I took in exchange.

I also worked 1 day a week at home (before WFH became norm) and used to get asked "did you enjoy your day off yesterday?"

On mat leave now for DC2 and have just been awarded a pay increase % less than my male counterpart. I can't deal with the stress of arguing with them about it.
As @Dreambigger says, some things are subtle and subjective and you end up questioning yourself and thinking you're imagining it. It's shit.

Mine was easy, did my 10 KIT days then just walked back into office on my first day back and picked up my work again.

I had kept in touch with my team during my whole maternity leave and couldn't wait to go back

I genuinely had no problems. Returned last May. I was allowed to work flexibly from.home, so no problems with breastfeeding and no need for childcare initially as could get the work done during naps. My boss is great and I get on well with the team anyway. The company is very family friendly and automatically adheres to things like payrises being equal for all. Had kept in touch whilst off, so no major changes to get used to, apart from covid of course. Took 9 months off.
The only potential friction point was that the person taken on to cover my absence took over the project so I was given other things to do as well as "helping" with the initial project. But I didn't like that project anyway so was quite happy to do something else.

My return was not too bad in comparison. I think a lot of this comes down to being in a relatively senior role with a good amount of autonomy, so I was pretty much able to dictate the phasing/handling of the return. I recruited my own mat cover so made sure there was a good 6 week cross-over period when I came back so we could do a proper handover, and I got in touch with the mat cover and my team members a few weeks before I was due back and let them know what I was expecting from them in terms of handover and helping me to settle back in. So I basically think that the fact my return went well was down to me just being quite assertive about what I needed, had I been in a less privileged position and reliant on others to manage I’m not convinced I would have had as good an experience.

My boss (male) was awesome "tell me what you want to do and we'll sort it" type thing. I adjusted my contract to reduce my hours and ensure I could work from home on set days a week. My targets were adjusted proportionally to my hours (which isn't always the case!). I still have control over my own travel and budgets etc. Overall, very positive experience...

HOWEVER...

a colleague who works in a similar role, but reports to a different line manager had a dreadful return to work experience. She returned on full time hours yet still had a number of her prestigious/exciting projects and higher responsibilities taken off her and given to other staff members and basically been given a lot more low profile, admin-heavy, thankless tasks in their place. She wasn't given access to certain meetings (that she was chairing previously), she was taken off some memo distribution lists, denied access to planning and budget meetings, had her line reports taken off her to report to someone she had previously managed, she used to oversee huge budgets for herself and her team, which was taken on by her mat-cover and not reinstated when she returned. Her line manager is female and very career driven. My friend was in her 40s when she went on mat leave, and has said she feels like her line manager (also in her 40s) almost took it as a personal betrayal that she was taking a break from her career to have children and has been punishing her since her return.