By Amélie Moncel | Mindset & Identity Coach for Working Mums and their Leaders

There is a number most organisations do not track.

Not headcount. Not turnover rate. Not even engagement scores, which most HR teams know are lagging indicators at best.

It is the cost of the woman who came back from parental leave, quietly pulled back, stopped putting her hand up and left eighteen months later.

She never said she was struggling. She said she was fine. She kept delivering. She smiled at her performance review and said she was settling back in well. And then one day she handed in her notice, and the people around her were genuinely surprised.

They should not have been.

The reality is that returning from parental leave is one of the most significant identity transitions any employee will go through in their working life. She is coming back to the same desk, the same job title, the same team. But she is not the same person. She has navigated something enormous, physically, emotionally, psychologically, and almost nobody in her professional life has acknowledged that.

Without support, the gap between who she was and who she is now quietly erodes her confidence, her sense of professional identity, and eventually her commitment to an organisation that never seemed to notice the transition was even happening.

This is not sentiment. This is a retention risk. And it is one that most organisations are not even aware they have the power to address.

What The Gap Actually Costs

The research on the cost of replacing employees is well established. Depending on seniority and role, replacement costs between fifty and two hundred percent of annual salary when you factor in recruitment, onboarding, lost productivity, and the institutional knowledge that leaves with the person. For experienced, mid-to-senior level women, the exact demographic most affected by this transition, those numbers sit firmly at the higher end.

But the financial cost is only part of the picture. What is harder to quantify, and therefore easier to ignore, is the cost of the woman who stays but pulls back. Who is technically present but no longer fully engaged. Who stopped volunteering for the stretch project, stopped speaking up in meetings, stopped being the version of herself that the organisation hired and invested in.

She is still there. She is just no longer all there. And that quiet withdrawal, that death by a thousand small retreats, is often invisible until it becomes a resignation.

What Good Support Actually Looks Like

The organisations that get this right do not just offer flexibility. Flexibility matters, but it addresses logistics, not identity. What these organisations do differently is create genuine space for the transition to be acknowledged, before she comes back, on her first week, and in the months that follow.

For the returning mum, good support looks like: a real conversation before she returns that is not about handover but about her. A clear, co-created reintegration plan for the first ninety days. Coaching to help her rebuild her professional confidence and reconnect with her sense of identity at work. Permission to say what she actually needs, without it affecting how she is perceived.

For her leader, good support looks like: understanding what the parental leave transition actually involves, beyond the logistics. Knowing how to have the conversations that matter without overstepping. Recognising the signals that she is struggling before they become a resignation.

What I Offer

I have built a programme specifically for this. It is called The Confident Return, and it works with both sides of the equation, the returning mum and the leader beside her, because both need support to make the transition genuinely work.

For the returning mum: coaching to rebuild professional confidence, reconnect with identity at work, and navigate the transition with clarity rather than alone.

For her leader: practical tools and guided conversation frameworks to support her properly, without making it awkward or overstepping.

The Confident Return starts from $1,800 for the individual programme and $3,600 for the full dual programme covering both the mum and her leader.

I also deliver Thriving as a Working Mum as an in-house workshop, online or in person, for organisations who want to support working mums at all stages, not just at the point of return.

If this is a conversation worth having in your organisation, I would genuinely love to talk.

Learn more → https://ameliemoncel.com/employers
Book a free call → https://links.ivorey.io/widget/bookings/clarity/calls
Free leader toolkit → https://ameliemoncel.com/free-ebook-employers

About Amelie Moncel

Amelie is a Mindset & Identity Coach for working mums and the leaders who support them. She helps organisations and parents navigate transitions with confidence, balance, and authenticity.