Advice on preparing for maternity leave?
This week, I began interviewing contractors to cover for me during my maternity leave. I am excited to meet our little one, but am also a bit anxious about stepping away from the workplace for a few months. While I have always performed well (evidenced by year-end performance reviews) and recognize that I cannot legally be let go during leave, I AM worried about being replaced as the go-to person for my projects and that I may be outperformed by the contractor or other colleagues filling in. Are these normal fears? and if so, how do you manage them? Any other advice on how to prepare for leave and return back to the workplace would be appreciated!
I too am preparing for maternity leave next month, in my experience, as someone steps into the responsibilities you had in your project they will not "out perform you," they might do things differently, but realistically there is a ramp up time and they will not know the things you know so they will rely on your team to help them navigate. They will do a good job, hopefully, but your team will be relieved when you are back and things can go back to normal.