REGINA - Regina resident Beth Wanner has created a new agency, Mother Cover, that helps women get coverage while they’re off work from their maternity leave while ensuring companies still have workers to fill any gaps.
Wanner first got the idea for the agency from her own personal experience. Wanner, who had been working primarily in the tech industry for the past 15 years in marketing and leadership positions, was thinking about how a family could fit into her daily life.
Eventually, Wanner and her husband decided to start a family, which ended up being a tough journey for Wanner, as she went through infertility and IVF, while worrying about how it would impact her own career.
She was committed to performing at the same work level that she had been used to while keeping her personal struggles a secret.
After Wanner finally managed to get pregnant, she was laid off from her work two days later. Wanner noted the reason she got laid off wasn’t because she was pregnant. Instead, it was due to the nature of what was occurring in the tech space.
However, she did admit, "I was carrying myself [and] making sure that I almost overcompensated in my career to hide what I was going through personally. Because, unfortunately, discrimination is still a thing, and it's not something that a lot of women and families feel comfortable [talking] about."
Wanner landed back on her feet, getting a new position as a vice president of marketing. Once Wanner told the company that she was pregnant, "it was not well received," she said. Eventually, Wanner was laid off while being eight months pregnant.
After she was laid off, Wanner decided to post about her experiences on LinkedIn. Hundreds of women contacted Wanner to share their stories.
Seeing those reactions, Wanner said, "I thought my story was fairly extreme. You didn't hear of a lot of people that got fired right before going on maternity leave. It's more common to hear about women who are getting laid off on maternity leave or shortly after coming back from it, but there was just a ton of stories of women who have had pretty terrible experiences."
Founding Mother Cover
A year had gone by since Wanner made her post on LinkedIn. After hearing from more women who lost their jobs, Wanner noticed there was a rise in fractional and contract work.
So Wanner thought to herself "how do we take this rising trend of people interested in fractional and contract work and like marry them to companies who have temporary gaps, gaps to fill."
Wanner felt from being on both sides of the coin, whether that was people on her team acknowledging that they're real challenges going on parental leave or the needs of a high executive having enough workers, that solutions would only focus on one side, not both.
The idea for a start-up business snowballed for a year before Wanner officially started Mother Cover in late 2024.
The way Mother Cover works is either a parent/worker or company can approach the agency to get leave coverage for themselves while having a temporary contract worker step in during said leave period.
Wanner pointed out that her agency is primarily covering leaves in the U.S. right now, with some leaves occurring in Canada as well.
She was asked why so many parents and companies in the U.S. were using Mother Cover compared to Canada.
While the sheer difference in population is one factor, Wanner said, "there's [also] just different challenges with maternity leaves depending on the country. No country has a perfect system, but because the U.S. leaves are typically shorter, they are harder to post role[s] and get somebody to come in and do a backfill."
Under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), a woman in the U.S. can get 12 weeks of unpaid maternity leave if they have met certain working conditions. Additionally, some states and businesses can give a person a longer leave, with pay included.
Meanwhile, In Canada, a person could be eligible for a parental leave of approximately 18 months, which includes maternity leave, at a reduced rate.
In terms of the maternity leave requests Wanner’s agency has received, she said, "[the average] so far is four or five [or] six months leave, but [I am] hoping to see that go up."
Wanner wants more women to feel confident going on their leave and focus on their family rather than feeling like a burden to their company or workers.
She also mentioned having coverage will show parents "[that they can] take the necessary time to bond and be with their children and still keep company goals on track."
Wanner went on to say, "if we take that fear away [from parents] and just show the benefit [to a company that] you're going to get an employee that's going to come back more engaged than ever. Loyalty is hard to come by, especially in the tech industry these days. So, it's a lot more higher [return on investment] (ROI) to invest in an existing employee than to have turnover and have to recruit again."
