CITIGROUP employee Eleanor Doody was five months’ pregnant before she revealed to her mergers and acquisitions team that she was having her first baby – and even then it was only because she was “outed”.

“We were in a meeting in Por-tugal and this female client asked when I was due,” said Doody, 35. “My all-male team hadn’t noticed. Why hadn’t I told them? Well, corporate finance for oil and gas, the area I work in, is very male-dominated and I was the first person on my team to need maternity leave. I just hadn’t plucked up the courage to tell them.”

Doody, now on maternity leave with her second child, Rory, nine months, said that at the time she was outed while carrying Matthew, now three, she was still struggling to work out herself what a baby was going to do to her career.

Her concerns were understandable because, despite all the gains women have made in the workplace, motherhood remains problematic. All three stages – pregnancy, maternity leave and the return to work – are strewn with difficulties. Having children still sounds the death knell for many careers.

According to an Equal Opportunities Commission report, 30,000 women a year lose their jobs after becoming pregnant or going on maternity leave. Caro-lanne Minashi, Citi’s head of diversity, thinks it is the third stage – the return to work – that is the most tricky.

“That’s when the wheels tend to start coming off,” said Minashi, who heads Maternity Matters, a new Citi initiative that aims to support women through all three stages.

Like all City institutions, Citi wants more women in its upper echelons. According to Lynda Gratton, professor of management practice at London Business School, motherhood is one of the main points at which women fall off the career ladder.

“There is a complete dearth of women at top levels,” she said. “We have a situation where 50% of graduates are female, but women make up only 30% of managers and 10%-15% of senior executives and board members.”

Citi, a British leader in diversity initiatives and pioneer in the practice of giving women six months’ maternity leave on full pay, can already boast a 98% return to work rate among female employees.

Minashi said she didn’t know exactly how many Citi women leave because they can’t find a way to balance their career with motherhood, but admitted that if the present situation was satisfactory there would be no need for Maternity Matters.

Minashi sees the loss of women after they have children as a huge waste of talent and believes that keeping them on board “isn’t rocket science”. It’s simply about an employer being aware of the changes women are going through and trying to accommodate their needs – for example, through more flexible working arrangements – at a unique time in their careers.

It’s also about maintaining good communication through maternity periods that can last up to a year these days.

Managers are regarded as crucial to the process, and training efforts were focused on them for a year before Maternity Matters sessions for women began a few months ago.

Doody, for one, is impressed with the Citi scheme. She said that with her second child it had made a huge difference in terms of company support and the network of women it provided.

“When I had my first son there was nothing like this and I came close to quitting,” she said. “As it got close to returning to work, I realised that I couldn’t go back full time and I didn’t see what else I could do. Investment banking is very male-dominated and I didn’t know any women in my area that had made motherhood work. I was just sitting at home trying to figure all this out on my own.”

Doody was lucky that she eventually felt able to confide her concerns to her male manager and a three-day week was worked out. She said the beauty of Maternity Matters was that it offered advice on how to make a business case for flexible or part-time working – rather than women approaching their managers as if they were begging for a favour.

“Part-time is ideal for my family,” she said. “The three days I work are long, but the two days off mean that I can really give my all when I am in the office.” It was an article in the Harvard Business Review on the dangers of “off ramping” that spurred Doody to try to stay in work three years ago.

“The article warned that it was very difficult for women to get back on the career ramp if they took a complete break,” she said, adding that the article recommended employers should give women a period of “deceler-ation” when they had babies.

Maternity Matters, however, trains its managers to understand that one size does not fit all new mothers.

Monica Gibson, 29, who works on Citi’s trading floor, recently returned to work full-time after having her son, Aaron, now 10 months. Like Doody, she entered investment banking as a graduate, loves her job and wants to rise higher.

“I had considered having a baby before,” said Gibson, who is married to a trader, “but previous employers had been less family friendly. Citi has a lot more young fathers and there is more empathy.”

There’s little scope for part-time working on the trading floor – and Gibson is determined to stay working in the area of business she loves. That means getting up at 4.30 some mornings to get herself and Aaron organised before she catches a 6.30 train into London. She doesn’t finish work until at least 6.30 in the evening. Aaron goes to nursery three days a week – 7am to 7pm – and to Gibson’s parents for the other two.

“I’ve been lucky,” she said. “Aaron is a very easy baby, and I have great parental support. And a nursery catering for City hours opened near our train station just as I was coming back to work.

“I’m more focused than ever and yet I feel I have to prove myself all over again since becoming a mum,” said Gibson. “I don’t regret having Aaron – I love him to bits – but I do think he has pushed my career back.”

The good thing about Maternity Matters, said Gibson, was that it helped Citi women get that kind of concern out in the open.

The Sunday Times Recruiter Forum is a platform for employers and industry experts to communicate with job candidates. They can share best practice and discuss the issues affecting recruitment and retention. Each week, forum members will appear here and at timesonline.co.uk/ recruiterforum, where readers can also have their say.

Upcoming events for HR professionals

Employer branding (May) Contact Glenkieran@projectleaders.org.uk

Times Recommends

• Inspirational leadership
• How to get a new job
• The reluctant CEO