How to support women returners as an employer
Most employers want to support women returners. Very few have written down what that actually means. The intention shows up in the values deck and then disappears somewhere between the last handover meeting and the first Monday back, which is usually the moment it matters most.
That gap is expensive. Research commissioned by the Equality and Human Rights Commission and the then Department for Business found that around one in nine mothers reported being dismissed, made compulsorily redundant when others in their workplace were not, or treated so poorly they felt they had to leave. Scaled across the UK, that pointed to roughly 54,000 women a year losing their jobs after pregnancy or maternity leave. Very little of that is deliberate. Most of it is neglect by default: a role quietly reshaped, a project handed elsewhere, a return nobody owned.
Here is how to support women returners properly, based on UK guidance from ACAS, gov.uk and the CIPD, and on what experienced returners consistently say made the difference.
Start before she leaves, not on day one
The return is designed during the exit, not after it. Before maternity leave or a career break begins, agree three things in writing: who covers the work, how contact will happen, and what the return looks like in principle.
Keeping in touch days are the cheapest tool you have here. An employee on maternity leave can work up to ten KIT days without ending her leave or losing statutory maternity pay, and she is paid her normal wage for them. They are optional on both sides, so they cannot be demanded, but offering them clearly is a signal in itself. Our guide to KIT days covers how they work in practice.
Agree the contact rhythm too. Some women want a monthly team update. Some want nothing until month nine. Both are fine. What is not fine is silence you never discussed, which reads as being forgotten.
What supporting women returners looks like in practice
A welcome-back email is not a programme. The returns that work have owners, checkpoints and a defined end date, usually somewhere between twelve weeks and six months. At minimum, include:
- A phased return. Reduced hours or days for the first four to twelve weeks, at full pay where you can afford it. This is the single change returners name most often.
- A named buddy and a manager check-in schedule. Weekly for the first month, then fortnightly. Put it in the calendar before she starts.
- A deliberate catch-up on what changed. New systems, new people, new priorities, delivered as a briefing rather than left for her to piece together.
- A first project that is real. Under-loading is as damaging as over-loading. It tells her, quickly, that the organisation has quietly reclassified her.
- An explicit conversation about progression. Say out loud whether she is still in the succession plan, still eligible for promotion this cycle, still on the same track.
If you want to see what strong ones look like from the other side, we have covered what a good return-to-work programme looks like in detail.
Know the legal floor you have to clear
Good practice sits on top of law, and the UK law changed recently enough that plenty of policies are out of date.
Pregnancy and maternity are protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010, so unfavourable treatment because of pregnancy, maternity leave or breastfeeding is unlawful discrimination.
Redundancy protection is now wider. Under the Protection from Redundancy (Pregnancy and Family Leave) Act 2023, which took effect for leave starting on or after 6 April 2024, the right to be offered a suitable alternative vacancy ahead of other candidates extends to eighteen months from the child’s date of birth, rather than ending when leave ends. If you are running a restructure, check who that covers before you draw up a pool.
Flexible working is a day-one right to request, following the Employment Relations (Flexible Working) Act 2023. Employees can make two statutory requests in any twelve-month period, and you must consult before refusing and respond within two months. ACAS publishes a free code of practice on handling requests, and following it is the cheapest risk management available to you.
Shared parental leave is also worth surfacing actively. Where partners take a meaningful share of the leave, the return stops being a women’s issue and starts being a household one, which is where most of the long-term career cost is actually created.
Hire returners, do not just retain them
Supporting women returners is not only about the people already on your payroll. A career break of two or three years is treated by most hiring processes as a defect, which is how experienced engineers, lawyers and finance professionals end up locked out of roles they could do on day one.
Two practical moves. First, strip the penalty out of screening: stop filtering on continuous employment, and brief recruiters that a gap is a fact, not a flag. Second, consider a formal returnship, a paid, fixed-term route back in with a genuine prospect of a permanent role at the end. It is one of the few hiring formats built for experienced people who have been out of paid work, and the talent pool is far less contested than your usual one. The wider practices are covered in our guide to inclusive employers.
Measure whether it is working
Three numbers will tell you more than any engagement survey.
Track your maternity return rate, meaning the share of women who come back at all. Track twelve-month retention after return, which is where quietly bad returns show up. And track promotion rates for returners against the wider population over two to three years. If the first number looks healthy and the second two do not, your problem is not the return itself. It is what happens in the eighteen months after it.
Ask directly, too. A short conversation at three and twelve months, held by someone who is not her line manager, surfaces things an anonymous survey never will.
Questions employers ask
Do we have to offer a phased return?
There is no statutory right to a phased return as such, but a request for reduced or changed hours is a flexible working request, and those carry legal obligations to consult, respond within two months and give a valid business reason for refusal. In practice, refusing a short phased return and then losing the employee costs more than the four weeks of reduced hours would have.
How many KIT days can an employee take?
Up to ten during maternity leave, paid at normal wages, without affecting statutory maternity pay or ending the leave. Employees on shared parental leave get a separate allowance of twenty SPLIT days. Neither side can insist: both have to agree.
What if the returner’s job has changed while she was away?
After ordinary maternity leave, she is entitled to return to the same job. After additional maternity leave, the same job unless that is not reasonably practicable, in which case a suitable and appropriate alternative on no less favourable terms. Reshaping a role during leave without a clear, documented business reason is one of the most common routes into a discrimination claim. If in doubt, take advice from ACAS before you confirm anything.
Is supporting returners actually worth the cost?
Replacing an experienced employee generally costs a multiple of the investment a phased return requires, before you count the lost institutional knowledge and the effect on everyone watching how the return was handled. The CIPD’s work on retention consistently points the same way.
Women returners are not a risk to be managed. They are experienced people coming back with sharper priorities and less patience for waste, which is exactly what most teams need. If you would like to see how women assess employers on this before they apply, read our piece on returning to work after maternity leave.
Hiring women? Get RecruitHer early access, for stronger signals and less inbox noise.
This is educational information, not legal advice. Obligations around maternity leave, redundancy protection and flexible working depend on contracts, circumstances and the date leave began. For guidance on a specific situation, contact ACAS (free and impartial) or take your own legal advice.
Last reviewed: September 2026