Written by Dr Emma Waltham | Parental Returners Expert
Wow – I can’t believe that it’s nearly 2024. I’m sure for everyone, it feels like this year has absolutely flown by. My team and I would like to take this opportunity to look back at everything we’ve achieved this year, and share some of our highlights from 2023.

Launching Returning Works
We kicked off 2023 with the launch of Returning Works and our fantastic new website.
It’s been wonderful to watch our business continue to take off this year, and we’re looking forward to seeing Returning Works go from strength to strength.
Expanded our team
We welcomed four new Associates – Claire Burgess, Kerry Dudley, Tomi Ayodeji and Karen Chamberlain – to help deliver parental transition coaching sessions and facilitate webinars and workshops. They've certainly hit the ground running, and between them have been busy facilitating parental awareness webinars and workshops for clients in various sectors this year.
Book a call to see how the Returning Works team can help you become a family-friendly employer of choice in 2024.
Formed brand-new partnerships
We are partnering with Advance HE and UHR to produce a Whitepaper investigating the impact of motherhood on women’s careers in the higher education sector. So far, over 170 women have told us about their experiences, and we’ve interviewed over 20 academics and senior leaders in the HE sector. An event is being planned to share the research next year – look out for details!
Read the key themes from our research so far.
Live, interactive events
We’ve enjoyed hosting live webinars for topical events, including a parental awareness event for UK Power Networks on International Women in Engineering Day and an International Women’s Day maternity bias webinar for Great Western Railway.
Interested in booking a parental awareness event for International Women’s Day 2024? Let’s arrange a time to talk!
Receiving super client feedback
We love to receive fantastic feedback from our clients…
“Working with Emma has been a pleasure, she is incredibly knowledgeable about the issues that parental leave returners can face in the workplace and how to better support colleagues to enable a smooth and empathetic transition back into the workplace."
Yaz Campbell, EDI Coordinator, Goldsmiths (University of London)
…and from mums taking part in our coaching programme:
“I’ve come away from the parental transition coaching sessions having re-found my confidence and feeling positive with where I am and having learned a lot about myself.”
Coachee, research institute
Delivering results for our clients
We welcomed new clients from a variety of sectors this year, including live webinars for higher education clients Goldsmiths, University for the Creative Arts and the University of Bedfordshire. We also partnered with a multinational manufacturing firm to deliver a six-session group coaching programme.
Finally, it has been our absolute pleasure to continue to partner with our established clients – some of whom have worked with us since the very beginning when I founded the business in 2019.
Plans for 2024?
Are you ready to prioritise increasing support and provision for your returning parents next year, so that you retain and develop your experienced female returner talent? If so, we’d love to hear from you; drop me a message and let’s set up a quick call to get the ball rolling.
In the meantime, have a relaxing Christmas break and I look forward to working together in the new year.