Small Business: Parental leave - Lou Draper, Loud in Public

Lou Draper, owner of Loud! in Public.

This week, Small Business editor Caitlyn Sykes interviews business owners about how they manage their parental leave.

Lou Draper is the owner of public relations, communications and marketing business Loud! in Public.

You've recently had your second child, so can you talk me through how you've managed any parental leave you took?

With my first child, I wound up the business I had at the time. Becoming a parent for the first time was so completely overwhelming, and after my intended six months' leave was up I just didn't have the capacity to keep my business going. But after 18 months at home I was ready to get back to work and started a new agency.

This time around, I had a lot more confidence as a working parent and made plans to be out of my business for six months, but still continuing in my administrative and management roles. My actual work was farmed out to a number of contractors — some have worked out well, others not so well. I have some business advisors and they encouraged me to start planning for my maternity leave early — around the four-month mark. Unfortunately I didn't listen and ended up only starting my exit strategy about a month before I was due. This is absolutely not what I'd recommend, because I ended up sitting in a hospital bed post C-section and just hours after surgery furiously getting a press release together, which I'd just run out of time to issue the day before my surgery.

The contractors I'd lined up mostly worked out, but because they were contractors a lot of them got busy with their own commitments and couldn't continue to work for me anymore. Fortunately I've always managed to find replacements, so the continuity for my clients has always been there.

How are you managing things in the business at the moment?

Things have calmed down a lot since I started my leave. I found that when I stopped trying to control everyone and everything things got done and done really well. That saying about too many cooks and all that is quite true. Right now, I have an exceptional person working for me and he's delivering beautifully. I think that's largely down to briefing him well and then letting him get on with it. But trusting other people to do work that you essentially need to put your name against is quite difficult, at least at first.

So has that been the biggest challenges for you in terms of taking parental leave as a business owner?

Yes, letting go of my work and trusting others with it has been really difficult for me. I also underestimated how much pull a newborn has on your time and energy. I figured that being an experienced parent would mean I'd still be able to contribute in my business, but little ones, especially when they have health issues, are completely unpredictable. A two-week stay in hospital with our son meant I had time to get things done while he was sleeping, but with next-to-zero internet access it really put a spanner in the works. Fortunately my advisors were able to step in during that time and help keep things flowing.

What are your future plans around managing your business and family, particularly in the near term?

I'm determined to give my newborn son as much time as I can. His sister got 18 uninterrupted months of my time before she started at daycare. I'm only planning to take six months off this time, but I'm intending to work variable hours so on nice days I can pick up both kids and go to the beach or that kind of thing. Giving them good memories of a happy childhood is really important to me.

I'm also looking at developing my business so it won't be just me anymore. Having other people in the business — employees or even a working business partner — would be so useful in terms of growth, but support too.

What advice would you have for another business owner looking to successfully manage a period of parental leave?

Plan — plan for your absence, plan for the people covering you and make sure you have a backup plan because even the most comprehensive work plans can turn to custard.