In an interview with actress Sheryl Lee Ralph, the US presidential election candidate, Kamala Harris, talked passionately about the power that the state has over a woman’s body, centring on abortion rights and instances where healthcare for women experiencing a miscarriage has been denied.
This debate got me thinking about the power of supporting people who experience miscarriage through our HR policies, and the ability HR has to shape how women’s health issues, and in particular baby loss, is talked about in the workplace.
Read more: Bereavement and baby loss: How HR can support
Many UK organisations have staff networks who are starting to talk about usually hidden women’s health issues. Menopause policies are now commonplace, as celebrities like Gwyneth Paltrow, Michelle Obama and Davina McCall have opened up about the impact of menopause on their life and work.
However, the conversation about baby loss and miscarriage is still a taboo in many workplaces and friendship groups. Words like bleeding, cervix, vagina, womb, grief and pain are still stigmatised. This can often mean that people are not seeking the support they need to be able to heal.
At Birmingham Women’s and Children’s NHS Trust, we implemented our first miscarriage leave policy (the first of its kind in the NHS) in 2021. We developed a package of additional paid leave to colleagues who experience baby loss: 10 days paid leave for the mother and five days paid leave for their partner. The package also includes five days per year for IVF treatment.
We found that heart-led policies like this led to increased retention for our valued NHS staff. We also found that it encouraged advocacy and gave people a voice.
Read more: Paid pregnancy loss leave offered to just a quarter of employees
A survey undertaken by Boost Evaluation of 517 people from across the NHS and other sectors in 2023 found that colleagues offered a policy of this kind were twice as likely to stay with their employer, twice as likely to recommend their employer as a place to work, and had reduced feelings of shame, anxiety and stigma about their loss. Interestingly, these positive improvements also applied to the line manager and partner of the person who had experienced the miscarriage.
After three years of advocacy and campaigning from passionate people including Thomas Simons, chief HR and organisational development officer for NHS England, a ‘baby loss policy’ was launched for every organisation in the NHS to adopt, covering 1.6 million people, in March 2024.
Read more: Organisations urged to sign Pregnancy Loss Pledge
The policy was met with widespread support from miscarriage charities, trade unions, professional bodies and campaigners alike, with the key theme: ‘We need to have the conversation out loud’.
As we look for ways of attracting the most talented people to our organisations, or maintaining a competitive edge over others, we should consider policies like this as part of our HR toolkit. A HR policy that can warmly offer some structure, safety and a bit of love at a really dark time for many colleagues and their families is more than worth the effort and paid leave that is involved.
In HR, we can use our power to influence within our own organisations and communities. We can have these conversations out loud.
By Raffaela Goodby, chief people officer at Birmingham Women’s and Children’s NHS Trust
