The Research Edge - Sustaining Career through Maternity Leave and Beyond

Newly published research explores the managing of work and career during maternity leave and beyond, and implications for organisations.

In a recent study conducted in Western Australia, women currently on maternity leave anticipated restricted opportunities in the workplace on their return to work, and a slowing and restricting of their longer-term career development.

The factors perceived to inhibit their careers beyond maternity leave included organisational (employer) factors - such as problematic access to training and professional development and a lack of opportunities to advance their careers and take on senior roles. It was noted that employers were unwilling to invest in training for women going on maternity leave or working part-time. In addition, training was often held at unsuitable times and there was an additional child care cost burden for part-time employees.

There were also institutional factors (related to professional associations and government regulations) including restrictive provisions around professional registration and training. This was particularly the case for women returning to part-time roles or taking lengthy career breaks, due to professional registration requirements around recency of practice and the number of hours required to maintain professional registration.

Of interest to women pursuing leadership roles will be the restrictive conditions to taking on or continuing in senior roles, which were not available in part-time or job sharing mode.

source

In further research, family decisions pertaining to responsibilities for child care following return to work after maternity leave were explored. 50% of women expected to elect to have child caring provided wholly by family members, including extended family. Only 15 % anticipated the use of formal arrangements alone. The planned arrangements for child care can best be understood within a framework of a ‘family budget’ of time to be allocated by members of the family between market based work and child caring.

Critical to these child care decisions, and the ability to manage work and non-work demands, were employee centred workplace flexibility. However, dissonance between stated organisational family friendly policy and practice at the management level was observed. This dissoance created substantial difficulty for employees, disrupting their child caring arrangements.

The findings have important employment policy implications for workplaces and the issues issues raised have broad applicability, especially in the light of the Commonwealth’s “Parental Leave Pay Scheme” 2011. This research also raises some interesting questions:

• Can we explore a ‘technology’ of work organisation where career defining tasks/responsibilities can be aggregated into different sized bundles to support flexible workplace arrangements?
• Are “family friendly” policies subverted by claims for  “managerial discretion” and a prevailing orthodoxy that part-time work and senior roles are not compatible?
• Do restrictions by professional organisations add value or represent restrictive professional practice? 

We'd love to hear your thoughts - drop us a line below, on facebook or twitter to share your experiences or accounts of workplaces managing this well.  BB

For full articles, please refer to:

Sustaining Career through Maternity Leave - M. Nowak, M. Naude & G. Thomas. Australian Journal of Labour Economics, Vol. 15 No 3, 2012

Returning to Work After Maternity Leave: Childcare and Workplace Flexibility.  M.Nowak, M. Naude & G. Thomas. Journal of Industrial Relations. Vol. 55 No 1 2013  p118-135.