Telling your colleagues that you’re expecting can be stressful.
It’s the first step in a long, complex process of planning for your family leave.
You want to handle it well, so how should you do it?
The truth is, there isn’t a single right way to do it.
But if you’re expecting, you want to share the news in a way that sets you up for success — that is, for a smooth transition into leave down the road.
Here are three steps to informing your employer of your upcoming family leave:
1. Do your research
You want to start thinking about how you will manage your leave well in advance.
Before you even share the big news, review your rights and benefits.
Do you qualify for leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA)?
What are your employer’s leave policies?
Flip through the company’s employee benefits handbook.
You don’t have to be a legal or HR expert, but if you understand the fundamentals you’ll feel better about everything that’s to come.
Note that you can always ask HR about anything you don’t understand later, once you’ve shared the news.
At this stage, it’s also helpful to begin taking stock of your family’s finances, childcare options, and health insurance coverage.
You don’t need a perfect handle on everything, but start thinking ahead.
2. Share the news with your manager
Many expecting parents tell their family and friends around six months before the due date.
This is a good time to break the news at work as well.
One reason for this: it’s better to formally share the news with coworkers yourself than to inadvertently have them find out on social media.
Set up a meeting with your boss at a good time for them — as in, not right before big deadlines or vacations.
Some expecting parents feel like they have to apologize for it, but resist that urge.
Just be frank.
Have empathy for your manager’s point of view.
Assure them you’ll spend the next few months ensuring a smooth handoff — but make it clear you’ll need their support.
3. Share the news with colleagues and HR
Next, share the news with your colleagues.
Whether you tell them in a group setting or in individual meetings is up to you.
But the latter is helpful particularly for people with whom you work directly.
After all, they will be covering for you when you’re away.
Around this time, you should also notify HR.
Ask about available benefits, and for any forms you need to fill out.
From FMLA leave forms and state disability forms to company-specific certifications and vacation requests, HR will be able to assist you.
Exactly when you share the news with work is ultimately up to you, but don’t wait too long.
The FMLA requires that expecting parents give at least 30 days’ notice when requesting family leave.
But the key is to give yourself plenty of time to begin preparing your peers for your absence.
If you’re expecting and haven’t yet informed your employer, get the ball rolling by looking into your leave rights and benefits.
Once you feel more comfortable about the fundamentals, you can think ahead to telling your manager the big news.
A real time example:
For our first adoption, I was really worried about telling my employer.
I somehow internalize that I had done something wrong, and was concerned about saying, I need to take time off to go bring our daughter home from China.
Somehow in my brain, I had mixed that up into something that I was doing bad for the business, and yet I was greeted with excitement and surprise, and of course, because I wasn’t biologically pregnant, they didn’t know.
But I ended up talking to my boss, I gave her as much time as I could.
With adoption, it’s a little up in the air, you don’t have a ticking clock, you, kind of, have a span of time that it could happen, which means you got to be ready.
That of course increased my anxiety, but once I was willing to share it with my boss and talk to my employer about it.
They just took away that fear.
