Return to work after mat leave - maternity cover situation

[Stillnotautumn]

What have people's experience been with their maternity cover once they return to work? How long does the maternity cover continue to stay on in your role to "share" it with you once you have returned?
I had agreed with manager that I would use my KIT days to transition back in, and once I return I will be full time in my role again. However in my return to work discussion with my manager recently she said she wants to extend my maternity cover's role too get her to stay longer. When I asked her why, my manager said it is to support me as I transition back in. My manager mentioned that the cover will be joining my team meetings alongside me to support me. This will be after scheduled handover sessions with her so even weirder that she continues to support me in a role I am fully capable of.

I wasn't expecting the maternity cover to stay on when I came back and this is making me quite uncomfortable, especially as I have done my role for a while so I know it really well and don't need support. I work at a mid senior level and manage a team and I always got really great performance reviews before I went on leave.

Is it typical for maternity covers to continue to stay on and do your job even after handover and full time return? Am I being unreasonable in being uncomfortable that I wasn't asked if I needed support but instead "support" is being pushed on me? Or does it all seem a bit odd?

(Also wanted to mention that it is widely accepted by people who know her that my manager lacks empathy and emotional intelligence, so might provide some background.)

Thanks in advance for any experience with this that anyone can share!

Perhaps your manager is using this as a reason to keep your maternity cover employed, whilst she tries to organise another job for her to move into?

Or to support all the acrued leave you've built up? You might be FT but still only be a few days a week as you draw down which leaves gaps for the boss and the team

This person has an existing role in the company which they came from and my manager also said their original manager wants them back in their old role. But this make me think the cover might not be wanting to go back, given that her original role is 2 levels below mine. Who knows. I haven't actively asked for support and am not taking my leaves immediately on my return, I will be spacing them out as needed over the next year which she was okay with.

I’m due to go back to work from maternity leave in 2 weeks and have absolutely no support or cross over. I have been back to work 2 times in my job following maternity leave and am quite senior too. Both times there was no cross over either and it was a disaster. Even though I know my job so well I needed that support, my mind was over whelmed by lots of things as you have your kids to consider. I think your manager is doing you a favour.
but if she lacks EQ yes it does sound she is killing time to find something to extend your colleague. I wouldn’t feel threatened though, it could be something different. I’m finding I’m getting easily paranoid with these work things and I have to stop myself to be rational.

Thank you Bumblebeehee for that perspective, I do wonder if I get too sensitive and irrational about it. I think what worries me is two people trying to manage a team at the same time or two people preparing plans for next year, when one of them lacks both context (she came from an unrelated role) and also won't be around next year. Too much stepping on toes which I have only ever seen go badly in the past.
I think the language around it irked me - that they will be there in team planning meetings to support me, as if I can't speak for myself in meetings. Perhaps I'm being to sensitive, but I've never seen these assumptions being made about a man.

Some reasons that aren’t doubts about your personal performance:

• in the past, people coming back from mat leave have found a lack of transition period stressful so your manager assumed this would help
• the mat cover has a time-sensitive reason to need a higher wage such as being about to apply for a mortgage
• there is an additional role in the team, someone has handed in notice or another mat leave that you don’t know about, the cover is being kept around to be better placed to apply
• dynamic in mat cover’s substantive team has some reason to keep them out for now

I wouldn’t assume the worst. But given your manager’s low EQ you might want to spell out the question: I didn’t expect to have this crossover period, I don’t understand the reasons or understand how the dynamic should work, please can you outline your thinking?

I would find this irritating. My mat cover has a 2 week cross over and that’s more than needed.

I would not b comfortable with this. I would be asking why and how long for.

Both times my.mat leave cover stayed on for 1-2 months... I assumed it was fairly normal.

Both were very mediocre so I wasnt "worried about my job"

Been back from mat leave about a year, my mat leave cover was due to stay in the team for a couple of months and I'm so grateful because I was beyond stressed readjusting, despite having done my job for years. I ended up going off sick with stress a couple of months after going back for a month and a half so my mat cover got extended for longer.
We managed just fine with the shared responsibilities. It was initially easier for me to take back just planning for the following year although I valued her input, while she continued line managing the team until I had my feet under the table properly again. She had a couple of projects she'd been working on that she finished up as well and anything new was allocated to me.

I really struggled when I came back from maternity leave, it takes a while to catch up. Everything had changed and I would have loved to have someone supporting me!

A lot will have changed while you were away from work and takes time to settle in.

When I went on mat leave they employed 3 (yes 3 men) in my place. And kept them all. It was a running joke for ages (poor fellas) that they needed 3 men to do my job but it was just used by the manager as an opportunity to get some more good staff in. Some of their work obviously covered mine but they had more to do than just that. When I came back they just all got on with their "more" stuff and left the rest to me. Worked perfectly. They stayed and we all got on great.
Just ask your manager for clear work allocation and if they're being kept longer work with the cover on some exciting new initiatives, use the extra manpower.

Actually a good point here. After I get a few weeks back I got very ill with gastroenteritis and had to take more time off. You'd be surprised how your immune system takes a hit.
My charming manager threatened to terminate my contract! I was full time permanent!

Is this your first?

Maybe they’ve had others return from maternity leave and they’ve not done this which leaves a gap when you need time off for poorly children etc. young children catch everything when they start childcare!

There’s a chance she wants her planning meetings so if you can’t be there the work continues?

Otherwise - no - it doesn’t seem usual that cover continues. And I can see why it makes you feel uncomfortable with the things we hear about people returning from maternity leave and being treated badly.

Manager here… I always try to stagger the maternity cover so they stay on for a few months after the person returns from maternity leave. Really helps make it an easier transition. I massively appreciated it myself when I was in similar circumstances. KIT days are great but they don’t really prepare you for what it’s like being back at work.

Mine stayed on for around 6 weeks after I returned. I contracted her so was fully aware. It made the transition back to work really smooth.

You get hammered in that first year back by every cold , sickness & flu bug going. Little kids bring home a new bug every 4-6wks we found and it was so so hard juggling them and work. Although it would erk me having the cover stay on you may well be grateful of it after a few weeks. I was also running off 3-4hrs of broken sleep night after night which impacted my mental & physical health.

In my old workplace the mat cover left the day before you returned.

In DH's workplace there's a standard of keeping them in place for three months for a smooth transition. It also helps if people get sick, their wee one gets sick (very common if they've just gone into childcare) or ends up making changes to their hours etc.

10 years later my mat cover still works along side me. I wouldn’t have got rid of him even if he left as he married one of our other team members.

Our role expanded and we needed the extra person though. We were a team of 3, which expanded to 4. In recent years we’ve increased to a team of 22!

I started in my role as mat cover 7 years ago.. still there and our manager used it as a way to increase the team.

In my experience, it's not uncommon for cover to extend as an overlap and often if the cover has done well the manager wants to work out a way of keeping them and it can take a while to allocate work and responsibility to create a role. If the team is thriving and work is increasing it's a natural way to expand the workforce.

It can sometimes be due to uncertainty. On my first ML when I was a junior lawyer they kept on one of the trainees who was just qualifying to take on my caseload. I only took 5 months ML and went back full time (financial necessity) which I'd told them was the plan but I think they were used to a lot of people saying that and then taking the full year and asking to return 3 days a week, so I think they thought this bloke would have more to do and for longer. In fact once he handed back over there wasn't much left for him to do and he left after a few months. It was a bit awkward.

I saw the same scenario play out a couple more times - once the original lady left because the partner she worked for preferred the new lady. She brought (and later dropped, because she ended up getting a much better job) a constructive dismissal claim. That was all very badly managed - law firms are the WORST at complying with employment law. The offending partner later got struck off, for other reasons.

When I changed firms I realised a few weeks in that I'd been brought in to take on the workload of a woman who'd just gone on ML. It was her second baby and my boss reckoned she would ask to drop to 2 or 3 days. In fact she decided not to come back at all. I wondered if I would have had enough work if she had, as I'd been offered a permanent role, but I think someone else left in the meantime so it probably would have been fine.

My second ML there was no official cover as there was a recruitment freeze at the time. My cases just got doled out around the team and apparently it was a bit of a struggle. Same again when I returned and it all got dumped back on me without much handover! Stressful! Make the most of the overlap I say.

I would be asking for absolute clarity on what their role will be and what ‘support’ they think is needed.

After my first mat leave my maternity cover was kept on and the role split between us. At the time I just accepted this was to support me to ease back in to work. It was full on going back with a small child, new routine and constant nursery illnesses so this seemed feasible and it did help. On reflection I suspect they kept on because they were impressed by them (they were fab) and had concerns I would go on mat leave again relatively quickly (which did happen).

At the time I just made sure I had regular 1-2-1’s with my line manager. In these I made it clear that the job split would mean once settled I would need additional work to ensure I was busy and also to make sure I was sufficiently challenged. As it happened work increased due to the pandemic and there was plenty to go around and I was back off on mat leave again within a year. Similar happened when I went back the second time, however I ended up moving roles internally pretty quickly.

You will never know if they are being genuinely supportive or if they are up to something else as they will never admit it. Just make sure you document your concerns with your line manager, follow up meetings with notes in writing etc. Look up things like Pregnant then screwed to get advice on where you stand. Worn out working mum on TikTok/Instagram is also great for advice- I’m sure I’ve seen her post tips on how to document concerns and tackle employers on this type of issue.

It's my second! I'm also 40 and definitely not having another one after this, and have made it known 😅 this time around I know what to expect, have things lined up around childcare and husband is very hands on and stepping back from his business for a bit to facilitate my return to work - which is why I feel like I can get back in with ease and handle the inevitable illness etc that comes after child starts childcare. Super lucky with a very flexible workplace as well.

I also spoke to 4 different very senior leaders in the company before I went on leave about their experiences with mat leave (one of them a man who took a four month paternity leave and they came back in a phased way). And they did not have to share their job with anybody else, their own team either stepped up or self managed.

On reflection I think a lot of my feelings around this come from both my feelings about:
my manager who thrives in chaos and fuzzy boundaries and in my years with her demonstrates consistent patterns of refusal to clarify rules boundaries because she wants people to figure things out for themselves,
And also my feelings about the cover person who over inflated their experience when they applied for the role (only applicant) and would talk over me when very new to the team and just acted a bit off overall.
So I think all those things are coming back to me and now that it's been dropped on me that my manager would like the cover to stay in, I can't stop thinking about women who are nudged out after they return. And particularly the language around "supporting me" when I haven't asked for support myself is making me uneasy.

Thanks for sharing experiences people!

Yeah, this would make me really uncomfortable too. I would definitely be asking why, especially if men who have taken extended leave didn’t get the same. Why are they doing it and what is the rationale behind it. How will you manager ensure the team understand you are back and “in charge”. I found returning from mat leave fine both times, I am relatively senior and stepped back in with minimum handover. I think I had 1-3 days each time with my mat cover.