Nick McDowall is a Senior Consultant in our Agriculture and Landscapes business unit. He joined 3Keel in January 2020 and works remotely, coming to 3Keel offices when the team is getting together in person. He and his partner had their first child in 2024 and Nick has used both paternity leave and shared parental leave.

3Keel offers four weeks paid paternity leave on full pay (compared to statutory leave of two weeks at 90%). In addition, colleagues can take shared parental leave of up to 52 weeks, which is up to 16 weeks at full pay, a further 23 weeks at 50% and a final 13 weeks unpaid.

Carole Scott, Head of Communications, chatted to Nick about the experience.

Carole: You became a parent in 2024. Congratulations!

Nick: Yes, my child was born in February and I took four weeks of paternity leave straight away. I went back to work for three months and started shared parental leave for 14 weeks from the beginning of July through to the start of October.

Carole: And what difference did having paid leave make?

Nick: It was amazing. We didn’t leave hospital straight away, so that took up a week of the leave. Before you know it, the first week at home has come and gone too. In a lot of businesses, at that point, I’d be going back to work and my partner would have been on her own. I couldn’t imagine having to do that. We hadn’t sorted our routines or done anything towards feeling comfortable. So, it was just amazing to have a month.

Speaking to some friends about what I planned to take off for paternity leave and shared parental leave, a few of them were quite surprised at how good it was. That wasn’t on offer to some of them. Even where shared parental leave was, they felt like they couldn’t take it because they would be out of the loop for too long. I’m sure this what a lot of like mums feel when they leave for nine months to a year, with the worry about whether they’ll lose their career trajectory. It was quite shocking to hear from fathers in my peer group that they didn’t feel able to take that time off.

Carole: What made the difference for you?

Nick: It’s credit to the culture of 3Keel that I never felt like I was doing something unusual by taking the time off and taking it to maximize the benefit to me and my family. Having that chunk at the start, returning to work at a time that worked for us as a family and then taking the shared parental leave a bit later was great. It was useful to be able to take it so flexibly, not feeling like I had to take it all together straight away. The 3Keel attitude was ‘do what works for you and we’ll work around it’.

Carole: Apart from the joy of spending time with your daughter, why was shared leave so important?

Nick: We own a café, so my partner is self-employed. There’s a maternity allowance that you can apply for but it goes nowhere to cover the cost of employing someone to do your job. Knowing I would be off made this easier. The 14 weeks was sufficient to see us through to a point where I could go back to work.

Carole: And how was it coming back at work?

Nick: It was really good. Although I was still officially ‘off’, I came along to the annual awayday in autumn 2024. It was good to catch up with everyone, see what had been going on in the business and hear about future direction. And it was a good opportunity to get excited about what I was going to be working on. Those days helped me feel like I wasn’t coming back to work with too much of a ‘bump’.

Carole: What’s the hardest thing about getting into a routine?

Nick: I’ve worked part-time since June 2021, with three days of 3Keel work and two in the café. While I was on parental leave, I could be a bit flexible about fixing something or doing something in the café. Coming back to work and requiring more of a routine again was probably the hardest. I’m simply not available to help with the café Monday-Wednesday!

Carole: It must be fantastic to have that kind of mix in your working life?

Nick: On the whole, it is nice to have the variety. There have been times where the juggle has been a bit much – I would finish 3Keel work at five-thirty and then there’d be an evening event to do. Or if I hadn’t quite finished something for 3Keel and I knew I wasn’t going to be in again until Monday, but someone might expect a fast response, I’d have to juggle doing it before going to the café.

Carole: What support did you get in terms of how to plan handovers and picking up work?

Nick: It was great. There was never any pressure to take on too much in the three months in between paternity leave and shared parental leave. There were a few projects that started when I was off but there wasn’t any pressure to have me back for the start of them.