Your direct report is counting on you. Your team is counting on you. And no one gave you a roadmap for any of it.
RETAIN Coaching gives you the tools, training, and confidence to lead someone through parental leave (and return!) well. Without guessing.
Supporting someone through parental leave is its own leadership transition. Most managers face it with no training and no playbook.
Nobody teaches you this part of management. One day you have a full team, a rhythm, and a plan. Then someone announces they’re expecting, and suddenly you’re navigating conversations you’ve never had, coverage you’re not sure how to arrange, and a return that’s harder to manage than you expected—all while trying to say the right thing and not knowing what that is
The anxiety is real. The fear of saying something wrong is real. The pressure of keeping the team moving without burning anyone out (including yourself!) is real. And the fact that no one prepared you for any of it? Also real.
That’s not a management failure, it’s a nationwide systemic failure.
Making Leave Manageable®
A structured path for managers through all 3 phases
Most managers cobble together an approach from instinct, HR emails, and hoping for the best. Making Leave Manageable® replaces all of that with a structured, self-paced program built specifically for the manager supporting a direct report through parental leave — so you’re not improvising at the worst possible moment.
You’ll know what to say, when to say it, and what to do at every phase.
Key tools included:
PLTA-MQ™
The manager-facing companion to the Parental Leave Transition Assessment, so you and your direct report are aligned on expectations, communication preferences, and transition needs before leave even begins.
Next Steps: Action Plan™
Build internal capability through the Leave Leader™ Manager Training Series, develop certified in-house RETAIN Coaches, or work with us to create a custom training program for your organization.
Leave Leader™ Manager Training Series
Complete all three self-led trainings (roughly an hour each) to earn your Leave Leader Certificate of Completion from the Center for Parental Leave Leadership and lead this transition with confidence.
The Parental Leave Playbook©
Written by our founder and included digitally as a reference to help you better understand what your direct report is actually experiencing, and where your opportunities to build leadership skills with them are, so your support lands the way you intend it.
One transition. Three phases. A clear role for you at every step.
Work Focus Preparing For Leave
This is where the groundwork gets laid, and where most managers feel the pressure spike. Before leave begins, you and your direct report will use your PLTA and PLTA-MQ™ reports to get aligned on expectations, communication preferences, and what a successful transition looks like for both of you. You’ll co-create a 3 Phase Next-Steps: Action Plan that covers handoff, task coverage, and team communication, and re-onboarding on the return, so nothing is left to chance and no one is left guessing.
Parent Focus During Leave
Your direct report is on leave. Your team is absorbing the gap. And you’re managing both while doing your own job (and let’s be real, likely some extra bits due to your direct-reports leave too). During Leave resources give you a clear framework for staying appropriately connected with your direct report without overstepping, keeping your team supported without burning them out, and maintaining the kind of low-key visibility that makes return easier for everyone, including you.
Working Parent Focus Returning From Leave
Return is where managers most often get it wrong, not out of bad intent, but because no one told them that the first day back is just the beginning. Returning from Leave resources give you the tools to treat reentry as the prolonged transition it actually is, so your direct report lands back on the team feeling supported rather than dropped, and stays in a sustainable way.
Two coaching formats. One proven framework.
Some managers want a structured program they can move through on their own schedule. Others want a dedicated thinking partner, someone trained specifically in this transition who can help them work through what’s coming up in real time.
RETAIN Coaching was built for both.
The RETAIN Coaching Hub
The Hub gives you full access to the Making Leave Manageable® program, your PLTA-MQ™, your Next Steps: Action Plan, the Parental Leave Playbook, and for certain clients, the Leave Leader™ Manager Training Series. Additional wrap-around support includes live events and expert webinars, perinatal mental health resources, and live RETAIN Coach-led office hours. You move at your own pace, on your own schedule, with everything you need already in one place.
1:1 Coaching with a Certified RETAIN Coach
If you want a trained thinking partner who knows this transition inside and out, hire one of our certified RETAIN Coaches to work with you directly, one on one, whether you need support helping your direct report and team prepare for a leave, stay connected while they’re out, or manage a smooth return—Hub access is also included. Your coach tailors every conversation to your specific situation, your team dynamics, your direct report’s needs, and what’s actually keeping you up at night.
Not sure which is right for you?
Start with our Leave Launch two coaching session package which includes personalized coaching and the Hub. You can always add more coaching.
It’s not rocket science, but it is science. And the research backs it up.
RETAIN Coaching was built on evidence that we then surrounded with a lot of heart. And the outcomes reflect it.
100%
Would recommend RETAIN Coaching to others
100%
Rated the program effective
80%
More confident meeting work and home demands
67%
Reported increased productivity
67%
Experienced better health and wellbeing
60%
Returned with more confidence at work
“[Manager quote, to be sourced from approved testimonials]”
Starting points worth your time right now.
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As a manager, you’re the one feeling this gap most directly. You’re also the one best positioned to close it.
Managers are often closer to organizational decision-making than anyone else feeling the strain of unsupported parental leave transitions.
If you’re here on your own, navigating this without your company’s backing, you already know firsthand what it costs when there’s no real support in place:
- For your direct report
- For your team
- For you
That firsthand experience is exactly what makes your voice the most credible one in the room when it comes to making the case to HR or leadership.
How to bring this to your workplace:
Send your HR team to CPLLeadership.com and ask them to book a free Leave Leadership Advisory Call. It’s the easiest first step — and it costs them nothing.
You don’t have to navigate this alone either.
Join the RETAIN Coaching Hub and get the tools, training, and community to lead this transition well — for your direct report, your team, and yourself.