This is a little bit of market research but hopefully quite relevant to the NVN community, so I hope you'll bear with me.
I co-own a law firm in Clapham Junction which specialises entirely in employment and equalities law. My colleagues and I are all parents of small (and ever growing) children.
We're a bit depressed by the monotonous regularity with which mothers about to go on, or returning from, maternity leave, come to us with issues over redundancy, flexible working, and general feelings of being pushed out or marginalised upon their return to work. Of course by the time they get to instructing a lawyer, it's often at a late stage. While the woman may get a payout if they've been treated unlawfully, it would been better (and more valuable) for her to have stayed at work. And of course, discrimination can hard to prove. We've been trying to think about how to best tackle the sometimes thorny issue of maternity and work.
We are thinking about putting together a workshop to help to inform women about their rights and provide some coaching on how best to succeed at "maternity proofing" their careers. The idea is that instead of reacting after things happen, we help to build women's knowledge and capacity to try to proactively manage potential pitfalls. We thought it might also be a nice networking opportunity for returning mothers.
The idea is that it would be relatively inexpensive compared to legal advice.
So the questions are:
1. Would you (or would you have) attended a workshop like this?
2. What would you have found helpful to know either before going off work or on coming back to work after maternity?
3. If we did set up some workshops would you think it was better to attend daytime with a creche or evening/weekend?
Constructive comments are appreciated!
Best wishes
Alison
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