A Guide to Preparing for Parental Leave as an Entrepreneur

Preparing to take parental leave is stressful, even more so if you're self-employed or have a business. When you're an entrepreneur, you live and breathe your company, and you may not want to step away from the business because you're passionate about the problem you're solving. Now that I've successfully taken parental leave twice, and both my daughters and my business are thriving, I've had a chance to reflect on my top tips for other self-employed parents. Hopefully, these help as you prepare for your leave:

Think about a rough timeline for your leave

When you're self-employed or an entrepreneur, it's usually not as simple as putting on your out-of-office notification and returning a year later. Like me, you probably live and breathe your company, and stepping away for an extended period feels impossible (especially if you're a solo operator). Still, you also want to be able to disconnect to bond with your family.

The first step is thinking about how long you can reasonably take off and how you would split that with your partner (if you have one). My situation had another layer of stress because my husband and I are co-founders at our company, the online will platform Willful. So, I had to prepare for my maternity leave as co-founder and CEO while also thinking about how my husband would take time off and how we'd share duties until we could put our daughter in daycare. He ultimately took the bulk of the parental leave with both daughters since I am more operationally crucial to the business.

One of the best pieces of advice I received from fellow women founders and my business coach was not to commit to a return date. This proved prescient for me since I originally intended to take only three months off, but at 12 weeks postpartum, I was still a hormonal mess. I ended up taking four months off for both of my leaves and not being tied to a return date, which allowed me that extra space.

When considering the length of your leave, start with these questions:

• Knowing I'll only be on parental leave so many times in my life, is it okay for the business to slow down or pause so that I can spend this time with my family?
• How long can I reasonably be away from the company without compromising our goals? What is the minimum and maximum length of time I want to be away?
• Can I share parental leave with my partner? If so, what split would I like to have?
• Do I want to commit to a return date or leave it open?
• When will my leave start? (Note that I went into labour at 38 weeks, so the "work until my due date" approach was a big fail, and I found myself scrambling to finish things)

Consider your involvement while off and your approach to returning to work

The next step is to understand how you want to be involved while you're away and how you want to phase in your return. I knew I had to protect my mental health and empower my team by logging out of Slack and work email, but I still participated in our quarterly leadership planning sessions and did a weekly call with our COO after about a month. I also participated in the fun stuff, like our holiday party and our Dragons' Den viewing party, which happened when our first daughter was only six weeks old. You may want to or be able to disconnect entirely or have to be more operationally involved in the day-to-day. Either way, define your boundaries and communicate them to your team.

The next step is to determine how you will return to the business. I felt ready to return to work four months postpartum, and while I considered returning part-time or 1-2 days a week to ease back in, I ultimately chose to return full-time since our team size and situation wouldn't have been conducive for part-time work, though yours might. How and where you work may also dictate how you return - since I work remotely, I could still squeeze in breastfeeding and snuggles while returning to work, but if you're in an office, that may prove more difficult for you.

What to consider about your leave structure:

• How do you want to be involved in the business while you're away, and on what cadence?
• Who can communicate with you while you're away?
• What boundaries will you set for yourself—for example, turning off notifications—to be fully present? How will you communicate these to your team?
• Can you gradually return to work, or do you need to return full-time?
• Is your work schedule flexible (remote work, flexible hours)? If not, how will you approach things like breastfeeding or childcare when you return to work?

Decide how you'll resource your leave and set your team up for success

It's not easy to replace yourself as an entrepreneur, but the key is ensuring the business moves forward while you're away. Understand that certain competencies or projects might have been paused or delayed, and that's okay. The key is to start assessing your options early so you can plan for the cost and ramp-up time of getting help.

A few years ago, I knew I was hoping to have kids the following year, so we invested in hiring a full-time COO in 2020. She handled gaps in the business - finance, operations, and a variety of other things - but she also shadowed me so she was familiar with my areas of focus and could step in while I was out of the business. She was on the team for about 18 months before I went on my first maternity leave, so it was very seamless for me to step out. I have friends who are consultants who have hired virtual assistants to help fill the gaps, co-founders who step up while they're away - and still, others who pressed pause on the business while they were off. There's no right answer; it depends on your business type and what's reasonable from a cost and training perspective.

Once you have a resourcing plan, it's all about communicating your plan and setting your team up for success. I put together a comprehensive mat leave plan in Notion, which included everything from video/text overviews of key processes to key contact lists to how-tos on things I owned in the business. I also included a list of things the team needed to consult me about even when I was on leave, so it was clear when they could make decisions independently and when I needed to be involved. This set our interim CEO up for success and gave the team confidence that they could move things along while I was away. By recording these processes, you're also set up for success if you're out of the business unexpectedly in the event of an emergency (the "hit by a bus" factor, which we think about a lot since we are in the business of estate planning!).

Questions to guide your resourcing plan:

• What are your core responsibilities that need to be completed while you're away, and which can be paused until you return?
• Who will fill those gaps - existing employees, a new hire, contractors/vendors, or a mix?
• What type of budget will be associated with covering your leave? Is that feasible?
• When do you need to start training/hiring people to cover your leave?
• What key projects do you need to complete before you go on leave?
• What information or processes do I need to document before I go so my team is empowered?

Ensure you're set up for success financially

Being an entrepreneur makes it hard to get a mortgage, loans, and other financial products, and it also makes it harder to go on parental leave. First, business owners have to apply for a separate EI program, and there are a variety of stipulations associated (you must register 12 months in advance, spend at least 40% less time on your business while on leave, and meet an income threshold, among other requirements). There's also evidence of the government denying mat leave claims in cases where they don't believe the entrepreneur has truly stepped away from the business - as if you can't be on maternity leave and still checking in on your company.

Then, there's the question of whether you can top yourself up while away to augment EI payments. And, in many cases, going on parental leave may mean pausing your business - and any associated income - until you're back. Either way, you will need to revisit your personal budget to account for things like baby gear, ongoing costs like diapers and formula, and, eventually, childcare. As with all parental leave, the key is to start planning early.

Questions that will help you prepare financially:

• Are you eligible for regular EI payments, or do you need to apply for the business owner EI program? If you qualify, are you already paying into EI, or do you need to set that up?
• Will you top up your EI payments while away? If so, by how much and for how long?
• Do you need to budget for adjusted revenue expectations in your business or add line items for new hires or consultants?
• How will your personal budget change while you're away?
• Have you budgeted for childcare? When do you expect those fees to start?

There's no correct answer regarding how long to be away from your business, how to resource your absence, and how to make it work financially. Your approach will depend on your personal situation, how much support you have from partners, family members, and your team, and the stage of your business. Regardless, I hope this guide empowers you to put together a plan that works for you so you can focus on your family and enjoy all the newborn snuggles. As someone who is on the other side, planning was the key to making my maternity leaves as low-stress as possible (that and sleep training!).