At my wedding, our priest described me as a workaholic.

I prefer to say that I love my job, which is why maternity parental leave intimidated me.

I’ve taken maternity leave twice, once with Clari and once with a different company, with dramatically different results. Both times I missed my team. I kept in touch on key projects, and I was excited to return. But this last time, the transitions were seamless.

As with any job well done, whether parenting or sales engineering or leading a revenue operations team, preparation is key. I want every parent to have as great an experience with parental leave as I had at Clari, so here’s my secret: Plan for the transitions.

You need three plans:

Pre-leave
Coverage
Return

Figuring out what I needed the second time around wasn’t easy, but with a supportive management coach and my lessons learned from the first leave, everyone on my team benefited.

Lessons from my first leave

I didn’t have a great experience the first time around with maternity leave—and not because I was sleep-deprived (our daughter slept through the night in month one). It was a bad experience because of my lack of preparation and communication at work.

I was blessed with a great vice president who supported me and my flexible working needs, but we didn’t make a plan for my leaving or my return. I only had a coverage plan for while I was out. When I came back, my team felt like they didn’t need a manager. They had four months without one-on-ones, coaching, or team calls. Since they had hit all their targets while I was gone, they felt they didn’t need a manager. Meanwhile, I felt abandoned.

My maternity leave from Clari couldn’t have been more different. With the help of a coach, I created a pre-leave plan, a detailed coverage plan, and a return plan to cover my first 30 days back.

Everyone knew what to expect, and what role to play for exactly how long—three months. I returned to a team that was successful without me but also understood my value. I knew where I was needed and could provide value from the moment I returned. And I had a productive and enjoyable first month back.

Pre-leave: Peace of mind

A pre-leave plan answers the question: “What needs to be true, so you can go on leave with peace of mind?”

Decide what changes, projects, or actions allow you to feel good about where you are leaving things. You likely have several months to plan and execute on this, and you can start this long before you tell anyone at work you are expecting.

First, I created a document with action items to ensure minimal disruption. Then, I centered on my goals: projects to complete, hiring, next quarter planning, and key deals to win.

I scheduled handoff calls with key co-workers who would cover my projects and responsibilities. We met once, sometimes twice, before I left on leave. I added them to internal meetings, and we discussed the current state of projects, what I hoped to find when I returned, and the plan for while I was out. This helped them make the best decisions in my place. I also sent a recap email after each meeting, so everyone had the notes in writing.

I used this pre-leave plan as my checklist and my countdown clock until I went on maternity leave. This was a private document I shared only with my manager and my coach, even as it drove my interactions with my teammates.

Coverage plan: The big event

The coverage plan is what most people think of when they take vacation or leave. This puts into writing who is going to take over for you in which areas, and should be shared openly and often.

I wrote it like a good business plan, with an objective, a summary, escalation points, and contact information for escalating any issues. Learning from my past experiences, I also considered how the team and managers would function during my leave. I tasked each person on my team with running two team meetings each while I was out. My director handled the one-on-ones, the career conversations, and the quarterly business review.

For projects, I assigned someone to cover for me, even if that just meant attending meetings and sharing information. I made my expectation clear with detailed notes: “One to two hours a week, attend the weekly call, take notes, and share abbreviated recap with the broader team.”

I also communicated what I expected when I returned: “The broader team will be informed on the project progress, and all questions will have been answered.”

When to contact me: This was key. You have every right to say, “Do not contact me.” But I wanted to be involved in hiring and firing decisions, so I made that clear. I also left my preferred method of contact for this, in my case, texting, and preferred time of day. In my case, the baby seemed to reliably nap around 10 a.m., so that’s when I did work-type things as needed.

Return plan: Transitioning back to the job I love

What would you want your first month back to look like? This is your best opportunity to do a reset on your career. I treated it like I was taking a new job, but I had the advantage of already knowing the company and the role. I made a 30-day plan, inspired by the book, “The First 90 Days.”

For me, it was important not to dive in headfirst and regrasp my role as the boss, like I did last time. This time I held back and observed for the first week. I interviewed everyone about what I missed, what’s working, and what needs attention. Then I compiled a list and prioritized, offering my advice and help where it was wanted and needed.

My 30-day plan looked like this:

Week 1: Observe and interview. Ask the same questions of each person and consolidate notes.
Week 2: Address hot topics. Work on high-impact items and catch up on what I missed.
Week 3: Establish new norms. Make changes if needed with staff, process, tech, and so on.
Week 4: Resume full force. Settle into the new, updated normal or make more changes as needed.

I also considered the timing of my return. For my first leave, I came back on a Monday and hosted a team meeting that day. That was a terrible idea. It was hard on me and disrupted my team.

This time, I came back on Wednesday and joined our broader team call as a listener. This took work off my plate and also let me enjoy being welcomed back as part of the team first before I took control. Having the team welcome me back was important for my mental and emotional state. I was happy to be at work, and they were happy to have me. The short week lowered everyone's expectations, so I was able to catch up with people and emails. I even left my out-of-office email alert active for the week. If you can, come back right before a holiday, so you can have a couple short weeks in a row.

While I was on leave, I set a personal goal to spend time each day listening to a podcast or reading something related to my job, so I felt challenged and engaged even while out of the office. Of course, the final key to all of this is joining a company that values the contributions of parents, as Clari does. I see that daily in the flexibility Clari offers around family needs, such as taking time off to care for those family emergencies that inevitably arise. And I see it in Clari’s support of smooth transitions for me, and my team, before, during, and after my leave.

I’m not planning on taking maternity leave again, but I hope that you can apply the lessons above and have an amazing leave and a seamless return to work.

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