Engineers Canada has released an updated version of its Managing Transitions guide, which provides considerations, resources, and best practices for both employees and their employers as they navigate maternity and parental leaves.
The updated guide includes narratives and stories that illustrate the complexity of taking leaves. With an empathetic tone, it helps unpack the emotional, exciting, and complicated process of welcoming a new family member, while reflecting different cultural nuances and traditions in raising a child.
“Parental and maternity leave is an important right to protect, normalize, demystify, and celebrate,” said Jeanette Southwood, Engineers Canada’s Vice President of Corporate Affairs and Strategic Partnerships. “We know that poorly managed leaves disproportionately impact women’s careers and can have damaging effects on career trajectories for all parents who take leave. Improving leaves is an important part of ensuring that engineering workplaces are welcoming and inclusive for all, and that women remain and succeed in engineering.”
As workplaces strive to support balance, ensure healthy lives, and foster employees who can pursue their personal and career passions, it is important that the supports, communication, and understanding are in place for maternity and parental leaves. Everyone wants a safe, open, healthy, and inclusive environment. Engineers and geoscientists often find themselves engaged in jobs that consume them—from remote field work to large refineries to office towers to rigs on international waters—and planning and taking maternity and parental leaves has many considerations in order to ensure that both the employee, their newest family member, and the workplace have what they need before, during, and after this leave.
The Managing Transitions guide outlines the reasons why an organization needs to implement leading practices for maternity and parental leave, and the importance of putting in place health supports for staff that consider the whole person—physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. The guide goes on to list leading practices for organizations, leaders, and employees to consider before, during, and after an employee’s maternity or parental leave.
This updated version of the Managing Transitions guide also includes five sample scenarios that use imagined personas to personalize the challenges that engineers and geoscientists may experience before, during, or on return to work from parental leave. Each sample presents a specific learning scenario or vignette that is used to highlight potential approaches, actions, or interventions that would better manage and empower the person experiencing the leave. From navigating leave as a newcomer to Canada, to navigating a parental leave when adopting, to navigating leave and balancing career advancement, to taking leave to support family, and taking leave in a small company, the five sample scenarios illustrate the diversity of parental leave experiences with a goal to understanding and being able to respond to individual requests or circumstances.
Managing Transitions: Before, During, and After Leave: A Planning Resource Guide for Employees and Employers was originally published in 2016, and was based on a foundational document developed by the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists Alberta (APEGA)’s Women in APEGA group. This update to the Managing Transitions guide was led by Flip Learning and Guiding Star.
Find the updated Managing Transitions guide on Engineers Canada’s website.
