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Creating a return to work plan: what to think about

Published: 3 Oct 2024

When it comes to returning to work the priorities for most people are getting your childcare in place and agreeing a date and any changes to your working arrangement with your employer – what else is there?

It may be as simple as that, but as Catherine Oliver, author of the new Amazon bestselling book ‘Working Parents-to-be’ explains, you do have some options to consider which can really make a difference to your return.

In my experience, there are three key decisions to make that will help you create a return plan that is right for you – your family, your role and your employer. These are:

  • KIT Days: do you want to make use of these and if so in what way?
  • Accrued annual leave: do you know how much annual leave you have accrued and how you plan to use it?
  • Straight back vs ramp up: do you want to just jump straight back in, or would you like to try and ramp up your return more gradually using either KIT Days, accrued annual leave, or a combination of the two?

Whatever you decide, you’ll obviously need to create a plan and agree it with your manager. Let’s take a look at each in turn.

KIT Days

Keeping in Touch days are designed to help you stay in touch with the organisation while you’re on leave by working up to 10 days (and a further 20 ‘SPLIT’ days if you’re on Shared Parental Leave). They are totally optional – both the employee and employer need to agree to them. However, in my experience, the majority of UK employers are now very supportive of their use as they recognise the value in helping with the handover and making your transition back that much smoother. And those who use them find them really valuable for the same reasons – and of course the added bonus of some additional pay.

The majority use them towards the end of their leave as a way to start re-connecting. To dip your toes back in and make sure you don’t miss out on key events like team offsites, big client / project meetings or training days that are happening in the weeks before your official return. Anecdotally I’ve also found a lot of employers are relaxed about the hours you do allowing employees to claim for them when coming in for even just one or two meetings e.g. to meet their manager to talk through a return plan and so on. They recognise it’s not easy to arrange ad hoc childcare and there is huge value both sides in doing this.

Accrued annual leave

In the UK, you accrue annual leave for the entire duration of your parental leave. That means both the paid annual leave from your employer AND public holidays (unless your employer includes bank holidays as part of your statutory annual leave). So, step one is to find out from your manager or People team how many days you will have accrued by your chosen return date. Then consider how much you are likely to use (alongside your regular entitlement) until the end of that holiday year and what you have left. The chances are it will be a lot.

The most common ways to use these are either to:

  • Add them onto the end of your parental leave – so you are officially back (and getting paid again) but in reality, you are still on leave.
  • Use them to ‘ramp up’ – and get paid full-time (or whatever your new arrangement is) while working part-time.

The latter can also be a useful way to trial a flexible working arrangement.

Straight back in vs ramp up

Why ramp up? It’s quite a big change to go from full time caring straight back into a full-time job (or even a part-time job). Both for you and your child. Phasing this change in over a few weeks can make it feel much less daunting all round. To help you get used to leaving your child in the care of another (for them and for you) and get back up to speed without feeling overwhelmed. You could even look at your team diary and make sure the days you’re in are the key ones for training, workshops, etc.

Sounds good, but how can you achieve it? By using KIT days and / or accrued leave. In my experience, UK employees are generally aware of KIT days but don’t always think of them as a way to ramp up, and fewer still are aware of accrued annual leave and how to potentially use both these tools alongside each other. This last point is key. It’s really important to note that KIT days can only be used while you’re on parental leave and annual leave can only be taken when you’re back. So, if you want to use both of these to help you achieve a phased return, you have to use them in the right order.

To give you a simple example. Suppose you are officially returning on 1st October and intend to ultimately go back to full time but want to start part time. You could begin by using your KIT days in September, one day a week, then two, then three.  After the 1st of October, you could switch to using annual leave to either keep working only three days a week or move to four. You hopefully get the idea. Your official ‘return date’ becomes almost a non-event.

Creating your own return to work plan

There are clearly a huge number of different ways you could use these tools – and there is no right or wrong. The key is to decide what you think would be helpful to you and using them to create a plan that works for your family, your role and your employer.

Catherine Oliver is a Diversity and Inclusion Advisor who specialises in supporting working parents. Her new bestselling book ‘Working Parents-to-be’, is a step-by-step guide to parental leave and return. It’s based on the sessions she runs and is designed to help new or soon-to-be parents, and managers, in organisations don’t yet offer this kind of support to recognise the challenges of becoming a working parent and create a personalised plan to overcome them. It’s available now from Amazon and all good bookstores.

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