Mum-of-two Donna Davies knows what it’s like for women returning to the workplace after maternity leave.
The HR expert founded More Than Mum Network after quitting her nine-to-five job in 2017 and has since been developing ways to support new mums returning to work.
She set up a Facebook support group and launched a service to offer one-to-one coaching for women returners to help mums who felt there was a lack of support from their employers when it came to restarting their careers.
Now she has expanded her services with a range of support packages accessible online.
It comes on the back of her own research which showed that 39% of women rated their return to work as “difficult” or “very difficult” while 89% of Donna’s network reported feeling anxious about returning to work.
Donna, who has battled through post and pre-natal depression, anxiety and HR difficulties, offers services ranging from online intensive courses with face-to-face interaction to printable workbooks.
She’s also helping employers develop better returner programmes for women after finding that 31% of women said the relationship with their boss deteriorated after their return to work. One in three claimed they didn’t feel comfortable around their boss and fellow employees.
Donna, who lives at Lindley, said: “My experiences of returning to work were very stressful and I also saw evidence of this with other new mums within the organisation where I worked.
“It isn’t standard practice to reach out to new mums, to offer support and guidance or to address flexible working options – but why not? These women have been through a lot in the months or years they have been out of the workplace, yet they are committed to their careers.
“Why is there so little in place to support them? Often there is no minimal effort made to re-integrate them back into the team, to bring them up to speed and update them on company changes. They are just expected to dive in feet first and get on with it.
“If we think about how ‘out of it’ we feel after returning to work after a two-week holiday, imagine how we feel after returning to work after a 12-month period where our lives have been turned upside down. It’s crazy.”
“I’m here to support mums both before, during and after maternity, to ensure they are clued up on what their rights are, that they feel comfortable with what to ask of their employer and to bridge the often awkward gap between HR and the women returning to work.
“I’m also here to empower employers to be more ‘mum friendly’, to help them put better practices in place and to improve the landscape for women returners as a whole.”
More Than Mum Network has services covering topics such as financial planning, childcare, managing expectations, emotional mindset and communication with your employer.
Donna spent 15 years in the corporate world.
After her first child was born, she received only six weeks’ maternity pay and went back to work after only 16 weeks. Looking back, it’s clear she had post-natal depression which was unrecognised at the time. With her second child Donna wanted to do things differently, but still returned to work again feeling broken.
After quitting her job, she suffered from major confidence issues, but found support from a women’s online community, Female Success Network.
Launching More Than Mum Network, she has turned her hardships into a way to help others in the same situations.
Her website states: “The transition from new mum to working mum is not an easy one and I’ve not met a woman yet that’s told me it was. More Than Mum Network is here to support women returning to work, and women who feel they indeed can’t return to their corporate lives and instead want to embark on a business of their own, to create their desired work-life balance.
“We don’t just cover the work elements, we look at everything from mental, emotional and physical well-being right through to the practical elements such as childcare, planning your home life and creating the right work/ life balance for your family.”
