How to effectively support pregnant employees: A guide for HR leaders

Although they don’t go out on leave until just a few weeks or even days before they’re due, pregnant employees require a well-structured support system to navigate the lead-up to their delivery date and their subsequent return to work. When pregnant workers feel supported, their overall well-being improves, which leads to higher retention rates, enhanced productivity, and a positive workplace culture. 

Likewise, supporting pregnancy signals to prospective and current employees that they can plan for a long-term future with your company. Achieving this, however, demands dedicated and ongoing support from benefits, policies, and culture. In this guide, we’ll explore actionable tips for HR leaders to support pregnant employees, including quick tips and long-term strategies.

The importance of supporting pregnant employees

To understand how you can support pregnant workers, you should first understand why it’s important in the first place. A lack of support can lead to costly healthcare complications, increased absenteeism, and turnover. But what does a lack of support look like? It can be as overt as insufficient healthcare coverage for pregnancy, or as subtle as inefficient workflows or a toxic work environment that lead to undue stress. When you’re designing pregnancy-friendly policies and benefits, here are a few things to keep in mind:

The impact of support on employee health and wellbeing

During pregnancy, your employees may face physical and emotional changes that can impact their performance at work. Supporting policies that help reduce prenatal stress can lead to better outcomes for mom and baby, including: 

• Fewer complications during pregnancy
• Faster recovery times
• Lower rates of postpartum depression and anxiety 

Likewise, when employees feel supported, they’re more likely to work harder and stay focused, which can make it more likely their team members can weather their absence, and that they’ll return from leave.

Business benefits of supporting pregnancy

Supporting pregnancy also has a number of benefits for your business. First and foremost, providing additional support to pregnant people can help close the glaring gaps in maternity care in the US and reduce the total cost of care associated with pregnancy and postpartum recovery. C-Sections and NICU stays, for example, are among the highest drivers of employer healthcare costs. Maternity benefits can help control those costs by providing targeted and personalized care that can help reduce, if not avoid, costly procedures and unnecessary medical visits.

In the workplace, supporting pregnant people can also help increase the likelihood they return from leave, reducing the high costs associated with recruiting, training, and filling an empty role. Additionally, supporting pregnancy can improve your company’s employer brand, which can pay dividends for recruiting and retention. 

Legal considerations

There are a number of legal protections in place for pregnant employees. While local laws may vary, federal law is very clear: you cannot discriminate against pregnant workers, and you must provide reasonable accommodations to covered employees and job applicants. As such, there are a number of federal laws and regulations to consider:

• FMLA, a federal law which applies to both male and female employees, as well as adoptive parents, offers up to 12 weeks of protected unpaid leave for pregnancy and recovery. 
• The Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination on the basis of pregnancy or pregnancy related conditions.
• The Pregnancy Discrimination Act prevents discrimination on the basis of pregnancy, childbirth, or related conditions. This includes protections for any ‘unfavorable treatment of an employee’ during this time.
• The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act dictates that employers must provide reasonable accommodations and prevent undue hardship for pregnant workers, including quiet and comfortable breastfeeding rooms.
• The Fair Labor Standards Act and the Nursing Mothers Act also dictate that covered employers need to provide reasonable accommodations for pregnant workers, including reasonable break time and comfortable places to express breast milk.

Staying compliant with these regulations can keep your company out of legal hot water.

Read more: Checklist for supporting employees going out on maternity leave

Key components of an effective pregnancy support program

There are a few ways to support pregnant people in the workplace, ranging from scheduling and policies to maternity benefits and training.

Flexible work arrangements

Allowing pregnant employees to adopt flexible or remote working arrangements is a great way to keep their stress low as the big day draws near. Flexible and remote work is proven to improve mental health for working parents, improve productivity, and even retention rates. Giving pregnant people precious time back from commuting and office life can ensure they can get to critical doctor’s appointments and reduce their physical health risks like injury or illness. For onsite jobs that can't accommodate remote work, providing reasonable break time and accommodation requests can also help provide flexibility.

Health and wellness support

It’s likely your health insurance provider covers prenatal care, but the extent to which it does can vary by plan and location. Nonetheless, you're legally required to provide reasonable accommodations for childbirth or related medical conditions. However, there are still significant gaps in maternity care that disproportionately impact people of color and members of the LGTBQIA+ community. Providing access to specialized maternity resources like virtual care, coaching, or even breast milk shipping can help close these gaps and improve outcomes for all pregnant employees. 

Education and training for managers

Like we mentioned before, culture matters just as much as benefits in how employees navigate pregnancy. Culture begins with their interactions with managers and coworkers. Conducting routine training and providing resources for managers to sensitively accommodate the needs of pregnant people can go a long way in ensuring compliance and improving the employee experience. Likewise, training can help reduce pregnancy discrimination.

Financial assistance

Having a child is an expensive endeavor. Offering paid leave, as well as financial planning benefits, can help employees responsibly prepare for life with a new family member, including medical care and childcare.

Building a supportive workplace culture for pregnant people

Building a supportive workplace for pregnant employees is key to fostering inclusion and maintaining a productive workforce. HR leaders can implement several initiatives to create a more compassionate and welcoming environment.

Encouraging open communication

One of the most critical aspects of a supportive workplace culture is encouraging open communication. An open-door policy for HR and managers allows employees to safely discuss their pregnancy-related needs, such as modified duties, flexible hours, or time off for medical appointments. This can help employees feel like they can trust their managers to respect their needs, and likewise access the many resources available to them — even the ones they might not be aware of.

Peer support and employee resource groups

Building peer support programs like mentorship or Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) can give pregnant employees a structured way to connect with others going through similar experiences. These programs can help employees feel less isolated, offer emotional support, and provide practical advice on balancing work and pregnancy. ERGs especially can help employees connect and communicate with like minded individuals who share their unique lived experiences. Strong ERGs are proven to improve employee engagement and lead to more inclusive workplaces. 

Recognizing and celebrating milestones

Helping employees prepare for pregnancy may feel very transactional, so it’s important to not forget the human element. This is one of the most exciting times in an employee's life, so don’t be afraid to celebrate. Consider simple and respectful gestures like hosting a baby shower, a send-off before leave, or even small gift contributions for their newborn. Something as simple as a card or a team-wide email can go a long way in creating recognition and showing positive support.

Addressing challenges and obstacles for pregnant employees

Creating a supportive environment for pregnant employees means acknowledging the challenges they might face and providing effective strategies to overcome them.

Managing workload and performance

Pregnant people will inevitably approach all projects with their due date in mind. As they get further into pregnancy, they may have less energy or feel like their focus is divided as they prepare for the big day. Clearly outlining expectations and performance goals beforehand can help ensure your organization and employees are on the same page. In doing so, it’s crucial to set realistic expectations, offer some flexibility, and resist the urge to micromanage.

Handling discrimination and bias

In the process of managing workload, it’s extremely important to be aware of how discrimination and bias can impact your interactions. Identify areas where bias can occur, including official communications, performance reviews, and policies, and make a plan to tackle them. This should include manager and employee training on unconscious bias, as well as annual policy reviews and employee surveys.

Enabling smooth return from pregnancy leave

Some of the biggest challenges employees face when returning from leave include physical and emotional recovery, breastfeeding and pumping, and adapting to a new schedule and family dynamic. The best way to support employees is to have grace, and to build that into a well-structured return plan that you design before an employee goes out on leave. Consider a phased return, where employees slowly ramp up over a period of time with flexible or remote work so they can get back up to speed. 

Read more: Five ways to welcome employees back after maternity leave

Measuring the success of your pregnancy support initiatives

Tracking progress of your pregnancy support programs helps you know what’s working and where you might need to make some adjustments. Start by setting your KPIs, and then determine how you’ll collect data to validate and track against them.

Common KPIs

HR teams commonly track these KPIs to see how they’re supporting pregnant employees:

• Employee satisfaction: Targeted and anonymized surveys to pregnant employees or working parents can tell you how happy they are at work
• Retention rates: Track employees returning from leave and how long they stay.
• Productivity: This one is harder to quantify, but you can measure it by surveying managers to see how their team is faring against their OKRs.

Gathering data and measuring against benchmarks

The best way to gather this data is to survey employees. Feedback from pregnant employees and new parents can give you actionable insights into how well your initiatives are doing. Consider the following:

• Anonymized surveys: Use online tools to get honest feedback about support and resources. Make sure your questions are clear and objective so you can get meaningful results. 
• Check-ins: Meeting with employees who recently returned from leave and asking structured questions can also help you get direct feedback.
• Focus groups: Gathering groups of employees can sometimes generate better responses than individual meetings. Considering leaning on your ERGs here as well.

Building a family-friendly workplace

Supporting pregnant employees is essential for modern companies. To recap, there are a number of ways to offer support:

• Flexible work and realistic expectations
• Open communications
• Conscious and unconscious bias reduction
• Specialized maternity and newborn care
• Financial support

Instead of addressing these problems piecemeal, look for a family-friendly benefits provider like Maven to help. Maven is the world’s largest virtual clinic for women and families on a mission to make healthcare work for all of us. From preconception and family building to pregnancy, postpartum, return to work, parenting, menopause and beyond, Maven’s intuitive platform removes barriers to accessing holistic support, while improving health outcomes and return-to-work rates and reducing costs for employers. 

To learn more about how Maven can help you build a supportive workplace for pregnant employees, contact our team today.