Parental Leave Coaching
Preparing for leave, staying connected while away and returning with a clear direction. For people of all genders, and the managers who shape what happens next.
We deliver targeted support for employees navigating key career transition phases, for those moments that matter that create both challenges and career growth opportunities.
Parental leave, caring, midlife, a return to work, a change in direction. These are the points where confidence dips, visibility drops and good people quietly step back. Our independent coaches help your people get clear on what they want and act on it, and help their managers lead them through it.
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Trusted by top-tier brands to empower their people and build an employer of choice culture
Ambition rarely disappears at a life transition. What shifts is confidence, visibility and the sense of what's possible inside the organisation. The biggest of these moments is parental leave.
The age at which women's representation in management starts to fall, while their share of non-manager roles holds steady.
WGEA Ages & Wages, 2024
The share of management roles in Australia that are part-time, just as women's part-time work peaks at ages 35–39.
WGEA
The fall in women's earnings in the five years after becoming a parent. The gap is still there ten years on.
Treasury, 2023
The point where part-time work and management progression collide. It widens the gender pay gap, slows progression and raises retention risk, and it discourages men from taking leave. That's why parental leave coaching sits at the centre of what we do, and why we coach the managers too.
Every program starts from where the person actually is. Offer coaching for one transition, or across all of them.
Preparing for leave, staying connected while away and returning with a clear direction. For people of all genders, and the managers who shape what happens next.
Coming back after parental leave, carer's leave, illness or a long break, and shaping hours, part-time work or a job share that suit the person, the team and the role. They leave with a return plan and a flexibility proposal to take to their manager.
Keeping a career moving while caring for a child with additional needs, an ageing parent, a partner or another family member. For carers of every gender and every kind of care. They leave with a plan for work and care, and the language to ask for what they need.
A point of real choice for people of all genders: renewed ambition, a change of pace, or navigating perimenopause and menopause at work. They leave with a professional vision for the next decade of their career.
Moving into management with a clear leadership style, set expectations and the capability to support people through their own transitions. This is the first promotion, where gaps in progression open up. They leave with a leadership vision and a sponsorship strategy.
Making sense of a role ending, holding on to what they've built and defining what comes next, inside or outside the organisation. They leave with clarity on their strengths and direction, and a plan for the next conversation.
Shaping the next stage on their own terms: phased hours, passing on knowledge and deciding what work, and life after it, looks like. They leave with a transition plan and a legacy their team keeps.
Every program starts from where the person actually is. Offer coaching for one transition, or across all of them.
Every program is built around creating agency, the cornerstone of our empowerment model. Ambition is already there. Coaching restores the belief and the capability to act on it.
People reconnect with their values, strengths and achievements before deciding what comes next. Confidence often erodes at a transition; this is where it's rebuilt.
The question moves from “what's possible given my constraints?” to “what can I influence, and how?” The result is a Professional Vision people take into 1:1s, flexibility requests, pay and promotion conversations.
An independent coach asks the questions people can't ask themselves, and helps them work with how decisions are actually made in their organisation.
Our coaches sit outside your organisation and every conversation is confidential. That independence is what makes honest reflection, and real decisions, possible.
98%
Report real-world impact
Coaching participants (surveys)
89
NPS score on coaching
Coaching participants (surveys)
90%
More confident starting a career conversation
Coaching participants (surveys)
10,000+
People Empowered
Since 2014
When coaching is easy to access and managers are equipped, progression data shifts. Policy sets the conditions; coaching changes behaviour.
For the first time in 23 years I was able to ask myself: what do I want to do next? I'd never really had the space to ask that question before. Senior Manager - 20+ years tenure -Rethinking direction
I was starting to really battle, thinking I'm going to have to give something up to be a good dad. Working with my coach, I came to the realisation that I can have it all. Manager - Retail - Parental leave
My career was and is still really important to me, but there were some layers revealed that needed to be managed… I went through some wonderful coaching putting together my Professional Vision. Senior Partner - Professional Services - Returning to work

"My career was and is still really important to me, but there was some layers revealed that needed to be managed. I really dived into this with my coaching with Grace Papers and I went through some wonderful coaching of putting together my Professional Vision and what I wanted to achieve now that I was back at work and after having 3 kids".
Lizzie Barca, Senior Advisor - Diversity, Inclusion, Wellbeing, Hall & Wilcox
Find out how parental leave transition coaching prevents bias and discrimination, closes the gender pay gap, improves leadership literacy on inclusion and improves gender balanced retention and promotion of talent.
