Log in or become a subscriber

There's no evidence that career breaks cause employees to lose skills, but employers continue to filter out valuable talent because of this assumption, according to a coaching specialist.

"Returners" – employees who have taken an extended break from formal employment – represent a significant, diverse, and still relatively untapped talent pool, partly because of bias held by others, but partly because of limiting assumptions they make about themselves, says career coach Kate Mansfield.

In a chapter of The Holistic Career Coaching Handbook, edited by Rob Nathan, Mansfield says the term describes individuals who have taken career breaks for reasons including childcare, eldercare, health (including physical, mental and menopause), relocation, study, bereavement, or involvement in a small business.

In a previous role, UK-based Mansfield was a senior coach at a social-purpose led organisation that partnered with leading employers to offer "returnships", supported hiring programs, and returner (re)training programs, and she coached hundreds of returners, both individually and in group workshops...