As more companies strive to foster gender equity and build inclusive workplaces, there’s growing awareness that maternity and parental leave must be more than just a compliance checkbox.

Virginia Fuentes-Itarte, a global HR leader with nearly two decades of experience driving transformation across 30+ countries and collaborating with teams from 82 nationalities, urges us to look beyond perks. She invites us to consider maternity and parental leave as part of a broader system—starting with national frameworks and cascading into corporate policies and personal journeys.

“We need to look at this from a country perspective, then the organizational perspective, and then the woman’s perspective.”

It’s a call to view maternity and parental leave, and parental support more broadly, as a system—one that begins at the national level and flows down into company policy and personal experience.

Virginia’s global lens offers insight into how dramatically a country influences a mother’s ability to return to work. In Switzerland, for example, she noted that despite the country’s family-oriented culture, its infrastructure often fails working mothers.

“The system… is developed for family style, but not to support working mothers.”

Rigid school hours, limited and expensive nursery options, and inadequate maternity and parental leave policies create systemic barriers for working mothers. In contrast, Nordic countries offer extended leave and normalise part-time or flexible work—shifting not only policies but societal expectations.

⇒ Explore comparison of the cost & quality of childcare across European countries (SwissInfo 2023 and Unicef 2021)

These national differences have a cascading effect. They determine what companies are required to offer—and what they choose to improve upon.

While national maternity and parental leave policies set the baseline, companies can (and should) go further in supporting working parents. Virginia has helped develop internal HR policies that intentionally exceed local laws, aligning more closely with organizational values.

“The country sets the tone in terms of regulations, but then the organizations are the ones who can decide if they go the extra mile.”

In one case, an NGO headquartered in the US adopted the most progressive European maternity and parental leave standards—even for its US-based staff—ensuring that new mothers didn’t feel pressure to return to work within weeks of giving birth. Another children’s rights organization in the UK extended full maternity pay to six months.

⇒If you didn’t know: Out of the world’s 196 countries, the US is one of only four that has no federally mandated policy to give new parents paid time off (World Economic Forum, 2016).

“We wanted to make sure our staff felt comfortable and in alignment with the values of the organization and what we are preaching.”

Company values alone aren’t enough—clear, proactive communication is essential. Virginia highlights the importance of structured, well-communicated maternity and parental leave policies that walk employees through every stage: before, during, and after maternity leave.

“Because the more gray areas you have, the more anxiety.”

When new parents are unsure what support they’ll receive—whether they’ll have flexibility after returning, whether their job is secure—uncertainty creates stress that no generous leave policy can fix. HR leaders must build not only the right benefits, but also the frameworks to communicate them clearly and consistently.

Yet without leadership alignment, even the most progressive HR policies can falter. From Virginia’s experience, lasting change only happens when CEOs, boards, and senior management champion the values behind family support.

“If this is not supported by the top—by the governments, by the CEO, by the board… it’s going to be very difficult to cascade that.”

Companies must assess not just what they offer, but whether their leadership truly believes in—and invests in—the long-term well-being of working parents.

Beyond national policies and corporate structures lies the personal reality of each parent. In her spare time, Virginia coaches women who are trying to return to work—many after long career breaks spent raising children, often without robust financial support.

They usually begin by asking for help updating a résumé. But very quickly, deeper issues surface.

“It was not about correcting the CV. It was about working on their worth… and gaining trust in themselves.”

The longer someone stays out of the workforce, the more difficult reintegration becomes—not only due to practical barriers, but because of growing self-doubt and disconnection from professional identity. Many of the women Virginia coaches need to rebuild confidence before they even begin applying for roles.

This kind of personal reintegration highlights why organizations must create welcoming reentry pathways and cultivate managers who understand the full spectrum of coming back from maternity leave —not just the logistics.

Working parents abroad often face an entirely different set of challenges. For expat mothers, particularly those relocating due to a partner’s job, the barriers to rejoining the workforce are compounded by unfamiliar systems, language barriers, visa constraints, and a lack of social networks.

“Sometimes it’s not just that the woman stepped out of the workforce—it’s that she landed in a new country where she doesn’t speak the language, she’s lost access to childcare, and she doesn’t know how to navigate the system.”

In these cases, returning to work isn’t just a question of confidence or updating a CV. It becomes a maze of logistical, legal, and emotional hurdles. Many highly skilled women find themselves sidelined—not because they lack capability, but because the system isn’t designed to reabsorb them.

This is where employer support can be transformative. Organizations with global talent should consider the specific needs of expat families: relocation resources that include career counseling for spouses, access to language courses, local healthcare navigation, and policies that recognize the dual-career complexities of international assignments.

“Support in these cases means much more than leave. It means giving people tools to function in a new environment, not just as employees but as parents and partners.”

Supporting parents at work can’t stop at time off or “returnship” programs. We must consider how to help families beyond compliance and convenience—especially in global and expat contexts.

Virginia’s reflections also reinforce the vision behind And You—where we’re building tools that extend traditional maternity and parental leave benefits with practical, educational support. With training for businesses to implement effective maternity transition programs, equipping managers to have meaningful conversations, providing structured planning tools, and offering direct postpartum wellness resources for mothers—including expats—with online, English-language content and 1:1 support accessible from anywhere.

These kinds of resources empower working moms and families to navigate new systems, healthcare networks, and cultures—meeting them where they are with guidance that fits their reality.

Virginia’s insight reminds us that support for working mothers must be built on a strong foundation, starting with the national context, reinforced by company commitment, and tuned to the needs of each individual.

“At the end, you need to look at this as a whole system. The country is the cell, and then you have the organization, and then you have the personal. It’s very difficult to dissociate, because it will lead you to different outcomes.”

Organizations that want to create true change must act at all three levels—and that means designing not just better policies, but better systems that include equitable, well-communicated maternity and parental leave as a core foundation.