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Taking 5 months off is pretty much same as changing a company or at very least the internal department/team. A lot happens in 5 months and from my experience no
by nextlevelwizard 5y ago
Taking 5 months off is pretty much same as changing a company or at very least the internal department/team. A lot happens in 5 months and from my experience no one who comes back from maternity or paternity leave stays with our company for long. I think this is because people think that they are coming back to whatever team and position they left, but that position has been refilled in that time and when they come back they are seated in which ever team has room. Which usually means completely new colleagues and usually new project as well. At which point they realize that they might as well just look for another job and often leave within the next 6 months.
It is easy to see why this kind of thing can have affect on your carreer development. Especially when people who have kids and take timeoff tend to have multiple kids and thus multple paternity leaves. If you take 10 months off work your carreer development drags behind 10 months and everytime you change your employer unless you can trade up your title you will be resetting whatever progress you've made towards the next job title (you might catch up faster to the same point you were in at the new job, but the progress still gets reset).
I don't think there is anything that can be done about this. This is how human brains work. Think about our ancestors. Someone goes away for long time and comes back. We might be glad that they are back, but they've missed out from the struggles and successes of that time, so we are less likely to promote them to the next leader of our group than someone who has been there while they were absent.
- developer93 5y agoAnd this x100 is one reason I don't want kids as a woman.
- m4x 5y agoOne way to address this is to have roles filled by secondment. That way the same position (on the same team) re-opens for the parent when they return. Additionally, the person who fills the secondment (and is usually a more junior member of the company) gets an opportunity to train for a more senior role and usually ends up as a top choice when that team needs to hire. In my experience teams are usually continually hiring, so the person on secondment can often go straight into a permanent role on the team when the parent returns.
- nextlevelwizard 5y agoThats not really fair for new people. Think how it feels to get into a team, then just as you start to be productive member some guy you've never even heard of comes back from paternity leave and you are bounched to another team that might be doing something completely different.
- m4x 5y agoIf you're on secondment you made an agreement to fill a role for a specific purpose and period of time. You will likely have met the person who is taking leave before they left, and their return isn't likely to come as a surprise.
- nextlevelwizard 5y agoCan’t imagine it would be easy to fill dev positions for few months and I have doubts how beneficial it would be.
- globular-toast 5y agoI've been at my current company for three years and literally every woman who has taken maternity leave has left the company shortly after returning. Some don't even return at all. It would be disastrous if men did this too.