Law Society to publish guides for new parents
Scottish solicitors, paralegals and other legal services professionals will soon benefit from new guides aimed at helping them have a smooth return to work after maternity, shared-parental or adoption leave.
The guides, produced by The Talent Keeper Specialists for the Law Society of Scotland, aim to ease the transition back to work for new parents as well as highlighting best practice for line mangers who have staff on leave.
To help shape the guides, the Law Society would like to hear from solicitors and other legal professionals, via an online survey, about their positive experiences, either as a new parent returning to work (no matter how long ago that was), a line manager or even as someone covering a maternity leave post.
You can participate anonymously or give permission to be named in the guides.
The survey invites you to comment on any or all of the following themes and your contribution (big or small) will be valuable:
- How to ensure a smooth handover to and from your cover
- How to ask for and make the most of Keep In Touch (KIT) days
- How to pitch for flexible working
- How to renegotiate your role
- How to set yourself up for a great return
- How to reignite your confidence
- How to ensure a strong first 90 days back in role
- How to draw boundaries between work and home
- How to get on the right people's radar and get ahead when you're back
- How to signal the desire and get on the partner track
- How to make a positive start to combining fatherhood and career
- Best practices for managing maternity leave for line managers
Commenting on the new guides, Janet Hood, convener of the Law Society’s Equality and Diversity Committee said “Over the past decade we have heard both horror stories and enlightening stories about women’s experiences when returning to work after maternity leave. But becoming a new parent and returning to work does not only affect new mums – new dads too have to make the transition to being a working-father and line managers need to play a big role in supporting those on leave and managing their experience as they return to work. That’s why we thought it was imperative to produce these guides for new mums, dads and their line managers too. We hope solicitors, paralegals and others will share their positive experiences with us in order to help others.”
If you have some golden nuggets to share on any of these topics, please complete the survey now. The survey is open until 26 August 2015.
The new 12 guides are part of the work the Law Society does on equality in the legal profession.
The Talent Keeper Specialists can be contacted via their website www.talentkeepers.co.uk For more information on the Law Society’s past research on equality go to: /about-us/equality-and-diversity/the-society/published-research/
FOR MEDIA ENQUIRIES: Please contact Sarah Sutton on 0131 476 8170 sarahsutton@lawscot.org.uk