Policy says one thing. Practice does another. We close the gap.
How you support people through parenthood shapes whether they stay. We show you what your policy says, what your employees experience and what your managers do, then build the capability to make it consistent.
Diagnostics, manager capability and culture change, developed by a registered midwife and perinatal mental health specialist. Based in the South West, working nationally.
This work is led by Melanie Jolly, a registered midwife and perinatal mental health specialist with fifteen years of NHS experience across maternity, mental health and leadership.
Read more about MelanieThree moments that often shape the experience.
Alongside these moments, organisations also need clear and compassionate practice around fertility treatment, pregnancy and baby loss, neonatal care and perinatal mental health.
Pregnancy
The first conversations set the tone. How disclosure, adjustments, workload and support are handled shapes trust from the outset.
Parental leave
Contact, inclusion and visibility matter. People need to stay connected without feeling pressure to remain “at work”.
Return to work
Where flexibility, workload, confidence and career progression come together, and where the decision to stay can be influenced.
Parenthood is a workforce issue.
When support is inconsistent, the impact reaches beyond the individual. It affects retention, performance, progression and the organisation’s ability to hold on to experienced people.
of reported sidelining happened on return to work, showing how vulnerable this transition can be.
of respondents who had returned after birth said poor support made them less likely to stay with their employer.
gender pay gap for full-time employees aged 40 to 49, against 0.9% for those aged 22 to 29. The ONS suggests motherhood may contribute to this widening gap.
of respondents said their organisation offers training on pregnancy or baby loss.
Looks Good On Paper
Twenty-five honest questions about what actually happens in your organisation, not what the policy says. Six areas, seven critical items, and a score band from Emerging to Thriving, so you can see where the gaps sit.
This is a free self-audit and gives you an indicative picture. It is not the Perinatal Workplace Score™, which forms part of the Diagnostic and combines policy review, employee experience and manager capability data.
A structured pathway from insight to consistent practice.
This is not an app, an employee benefit or a coaching programme, and it is not generic HR training with a perinatal label. The work is grounded in clinical expertise, evidence and the realities managers and employees are navigating at each stage of the parenthood transition.
Diagnose
Understand what is happening now.
Bring together what the organisation says and does, what employees experience, and what managers know and do, for a clear picture of strengths, gaps and priorities.
Design
Put the right foundations in place.
Translate the priorities into the strategy, policies and support needed for consistent practice.
Transform
Turn intention into everyday practice.
Build manager capability so good practice shows up in everyday conversations and decisions.
Sustain runs beneath all three, keeping guidance current and practice measured. It is an ongoing service, not a fourth stage: measure progress, review impact and strengthen practice over time.
Support that meets your organisation where it is.
The Method is how the work is done. The three levels below are how much support you commission. Some organisations need to understand where the gaps are. Others already know change is needed and want help building and embedding it. Each level of support builds on the one before it.
Diagnostic
Understand what is really happening.
Establish a clear baseline across policy, employee experience and manager capability.
- Policy and practice review
- Employee and manager insight
- The Perinatal Workplace Score™ and priority report
Strategy & Design
Turn the evidence into a clear plan.
Everything in Diagnostic, plus the organisational foundations needed to close the gaps.
- Perinatal workplace strategy
- Policy and practice design
- Measurement framework and implementation roadmap
Transformation
Put the strategy into practice.
Everything in Strategy & Design, plus the capability and implementation support needed to make change visible in everyday experience.
- The Perinatal Leadership Programme™
- Practical implementation support
- Ongoing measurement and review
Three sessions for line managers, run as a series because the capability builds across all three.
The aim is consistent, confident judgement across your managers, so that the experience does not depend on which manager someone has.
Session 1: Understanding the Perinatal Experience at Work
Explore pregnancy, loss, leave and return at work. Question assumptions, recognise what managers may not see, understand the manager’s role and identify the next workplace step.
Session 2: Confident Conversations at Work
Hold sensitive conversations and agree clear follow-through. Practise responses to disclosure, loss, fertility treatment and a difficult return. Listen without assumptions and know when to seek advice.
Session 3: Leading Return, Progression and Retention
Plan work and career opportunities without assumptions about commitment. Apply practical approaches to flexibility, leave cover and return arrangements. Explore how everyday leadership influences progression and retention.
Three sessions of three hours, two to four weeks apart, online or in person. Sold as the full series: on its own, added to Tier One or Two, or included in Tier Three.
What could post-parental-leave turnover cost your organisation?
Use your own workforce figures to explore the potential cost of post-parental-leave turnover. The calculator is an illustrative planning tool, not a prediction, and you can adjust every assumption.
Your organisation
How the estimate works: employees leaving after return × estimated replacement cost per employee. Replacement cost per employee is calculated as average salary × the replacement-cost percentage you choose. The estimate includes only the costs you have allowed for in your chosen percentage. Anything you leave out, such as management time, team disruption or lost organisational knowledge, is not counted. For internal business cases, use your organisation's own workforce and cost data wherever possible.
Clinical expertise shaping workplace practice and culture.
As a midwife and perinatal mental health specialist, I’ve spent much of my career alongside women and families through life-changing transitions, seeing how deeply these experiences can affect their wellbeing, identity and confidence.
My experience spans leadership, service development and project management, underpinned by an MSc in Advanced Professional Practice. I understand the work involved in turning good intentions into everyday practice: bringing people together, supporting teams and making change happen.
As an ambitious mum of one, I also know how much it matters to have space for both family and a fulfilling career. Becoming a parent shouldn’t mean your opportunities to progress become smaller.
I founded The Perinatal Workplace Consultancy to bring these perspectives together, helping organisations build support that works in practice, so people can navigate these transitions and continue to grow in their careers.
Built for organisations that want to support people well and keep their talent.
Pregnancy, parental leave and the return to work are hardest to navigate where targets are demanding, continuity matters and promotion timelines don't pause. The Perinatal Workplace Method™ works wherever those pressures exist.
Start with a 30 minute discovery call.
Tell me what is happening in your organisation, what you are trying to improve and where the gaps may be. Then we can work out together whether this is the right fit and what a useful next step looks like.