Purpose
Family-friendly policies, like flexible work arrangements, provide structural support for working mothers but often lack psychological resources to facilitate their transition back to work. To tackle this, it's crucial to understand which psychological resource to focus on, how to strengthen it, and when the best time to do so. We present an impact case in Japan to address these questions.


Approach
We focused on work-family balance self-efficacy, a crucial psychological resource for working mothers. We developed a training program based on social learning theory to enhance work-family balance self-efficacy and targeted working mothers on maternity leave, a time when they face significant stress and challenges. We conducted an intervention study between 2018 and 2019 and follow-up interviews with 22 participants in 2024 to explore what they most appreciate about the training after five years.


Findings
Findings from the published intervention study reveal that participants (100 working mothers on maternity leave) increased their work-family balance self-efficacy after training, which contributed to better performance after returning to work. Follow-up interviews highlighted key takeaways from the training program, including perspective broadening, skill development, vicarious learning, positive persuasion, and changes in emotional states, demonstrating the success of using social learning theory to design the program.


Originality
Our impact case is original in focusing on building work-family balance self-efficacy to support working mothers' transition returning to work. While work-family balance self-efficacy is recognized as crucial for working mothers, no training program has specifically aimed at enhancing it, showing the originality of our work.