Coming back into the office slowly from maternity leave?

[Peepa]

Thinking of working from home full time for the first couple of weeks back from maternity leave and then, 4 days work from home, 3 days work from home, and so forth.
Any of you do it this way and how did you approach your boss?

 

[MustangGal]

It would have been nice, but was not an option for me. If your comapny allows employees to work from home, and your position can be done in this way, then I would approach your supervisor with the idea. Now would be the time before you go out so that the plan is already in place. The worst they can say is "no"!

 

[D&T]

Actually I talked to my boss, before I left on maternity, however I also worked from home while I was on maternity leave (so to them it was more like I took a couple of weeks off to have a baby, and did all my work from home) I would swing by the office on the weekend to pick up my "in box" then brought it home to do the work, I have remote access to do the work with all the softwares at home. Because we have a small office with only about 10 employees total, and I was in management, it really didn't make any sense to try and train someone on the software that took me a long time to learn the ins and out of. Because I was a valued employee to my boss they made it very comfortable for me, they insisted I take however many days I needed to recover, and if it means me coming back one day or two days at a time, they would be fine with it, it was my call. However, I also made it very clear to them that my work and the organization was very important to me, and that if they needed me to be there five days a week, I would try my darndest but at the same time, value that they appreciated my being a mother and taking care of my children. Because also due to the economy, I even suggested that i would not be looking for a raise or a bonus (as they so usually do at the end of the year) in order to do some sort of an exchange with my working from home. They also value that I looked for ways to compromise as well financially, though it was clear that I did not need to do that as well. So If you are comfortable, I would suggest kind of feeling them out as well, Do you have a good relationship with your upper management? do you know how they feel about working from home? I was actually the first employee to do this, and I didn't know what to expect, but I was upfront and honest before I went on maternity leave that I would not just "leave the company" and would really like to work something out, since I don't want a trainee (nor did my coworkers), and they were really nervous at first about that as well, but because I dedicated myself, it reassured them even more that I could do the work from home. Sorry if this is just rambling. When is your maternity leave up? (maybe try to start a couple of days from home prior to your leave being up? I know that a corporation has strict policy that if you are on leave, that means no work involvment. I don't know how it is at your company, but with my current employer, since we're private and don't have the min employees for that health concern(not sure what the policy is) it was not an issue for me to work a bit here and there while I was recovering. It was nerve racking to bring up the Work from home thing, so I know how you must be feeling. just like Mustangal said, the worst they can say is no. Hope it goes your way though, its tough doing both but I enjoy being able to see my kids at least a couple of extra days.

 

[DivaDiamond007]

I took a mostly unpaid 6-month maternity leave and then went back part-time. My son was born July 2008, I went back January 2009 and I''m still currently working 30 hours a week. It gave me extra time each day with my son and allowed me to make some much needed money too. My hours will likely increase soon since my boss is in the process of expanding his advertising so I''ll need to be in the office more to get everything done.

 

[LitigatorChick]

I worked from home for part of the week when I came back and essentially worked less hours. I was told to simply work less but keep my "full time" position - it would all work out in the wash. And it did.