To sum up my first few weeks back, I have the following insights I can offer:

Be patient

Before I left to have my baby I was in a role where I was constantly busy. I expected the same when I returned back on the first day!! I know this was unrealistic but I wanted to get back to being me at work again. It will happen! My diary is already full with upcoming meetings and it didn’t take too long. The work I produce will happen soon too.

Be kind to yourself

It is ok to go through a whole bunch of emotions and thoughts about choices you have made, whether you will still get the same career development opportunities, can you still do what you used to do!?!! It’s all normal and for now I’m taking it day by day. I’m taking the approach of saying yes to everything, being proactive and at the same time explaining my skills and how I would love to develop in the team.

Reach out

This one relates a lot more to the current environment under COVID19. It was pretty lonely and isolating coming back to work and immediately working from home. Meanwhile there was a restructure in the team and 95% of people were new. To combat my loneliness I reached out to my new manager almost everyday, spoke to work friends in other areas and once I was in a program of work, I started being included in a lot more team based meetings.

Put in a little extra effort

For me personally, I don’t feel settled when I can’t see the full picture and get to the point where I feel comfortable with understanding what is going on. I am spending extra time getting familiar with the broader context and more detailed content regarding the new project I have been assigned to. If you can allow yourself a little extra time when you are not at work to do this, even just for the first few weeks, it will pay off.

Wishing you the best of luck if you are returning to work after maternity leave.

For further articles relating to your personal initiative and your career, check out the following link.

The Career Girl

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At around about the four or five month mark, I found myself feeling more confident with being able to take care of my baby daughter (and being able to leave the house on my own with her!) and yet I found myself still being frustrated, thinking I wasn’t ‘achieving’ anything.

I know this is not true – I had a happy little girl to prove I was in fact achieving a lot!

I didn’t quite know how to overcome this frustration so I started to again do all the things that I enjoyed doing. I read, I started being creative again through my writing and art, I started exercising which I hadn’t done for a long time. I was starting to feel better because I was doing something for myself.

I love being productive with my time and I am passionate about learning, and I found I was still very passionate about my career. Perhaps even more so because I wanted to provide the best life I could for my new little family.

So I asked a friend of mine who is a consultant if I could do a project with her, and that’s where it began! A project came up within a month and so began my endeavours into the consulting world. It was an interesting project with a chance to make a real impact on a lot of people. I felt really motivated and enthusiastic…and productive!

I am now taking chances and really changing how I work. Projects are leading to other projects and I have a fantastic chance of growing my own business in this space.

Because I am able to do things I enjoy and I am feeling productive, I am happier and I’m therefore able to be more relaxed, calm and more patient with my daughter. She picks up on how I am feeling very easily so the more relaxed I have been the more relaxed she is.

I have also noticed that I really value every single second and I don’t like to waste even one minute now. I have a plan of how I’d like to spend each morning she is napping to ensure I keep up this positive feeling going. I admit not every day goes to plan but I know not every day will be the same and I can catch up on ‘mummy’ time either later that day, the next day, or the day after that.

I hope that your maternity year gradually becomes easier too as you progress through the months. I know it is difficult and I hope some of my learnings are able to inspire you to take care of your self more too. Allow yourself the time to do what you enjoy. You owe it to yourself and your family

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Because it was the end of the year, the next training sessions were to be held after several months – which is a great deal of time when you are pregnant! Over this time I edged closer to my first day of maternity leave and my belly grew a lot! It was hard not to think about when you saw me.

When I approached my boss about attending the training session again, sending her the details of which one would be best to attend, she wrote back saying that this was not the best time for me to do a training session. She said that it wouldn’t be worthwhile for me to attend because there wouldn’t be enough time to practice what I had learnt and that I would forget my training when I was on maternity leave.

I was hurt and furious! I felt completely discriminated against.

I tried to see things from my boss’s point of view – which was very hard – and did my best to calm down. It took me weeks to not get upset over it anymore. At this point in time I was also thinking I was falling into the abyss of my year long maternity leave (maybe even longer) where I’d be forgotten about and no longer have any opportunities to progress my hard earned career. It was hard to keep a level head.

Maybe my boss had a point, and maybe she didn’t. This however was my approach:

After running different conversations in my head about how I would confront my boss or even my boss’s boss or HR, I decided it wouldn’t be worth the stress and heartache it would cause me in my last few months at work.

My boss had actually avoided me for about two months – at least I could still carry out all my work with my project team as we had a flat structure and led our own work. When my boss needed me for a submission of some sort she only emailed me. This honestly really got me down even more about the whole situation.

I made a decision that if I wanted to do the training, I would set aside the money myself and do it in my own time, with my own resources. Knowing I had the freedom to do this relaxed me a lot.

In a 1:1 meeting I had with my boss’s boss shortly before I went on leave, I decided that I would only say positive things about my experience with my team (which was true) and my boss (which was not entirely true). I realised the best scenario I had played out in my head was one where I remained calm, professional and positive.

Specifically in regards to my training, I said that I was looking forward to undertaking a training session when I returned from maternity leave and my boss’s boss said she supported and approved me undertaking this training. I said I was thankful for the support of my boss (which I had when I first started my role) and that was it.

If I had mentioned the experience I had of not getting my training opportunity and I had their agreement over me being treated unfairly, it wouldn’t change things for the better. I may have gotten my training but at the possible expense of further deteriorating my relationship with my boss. Also, I didn’t want to leave a ‘bad taste’ with my boss’s boss of being seen as someone who complains (they might forget the content but remember that I complained about something).

This positive feedback found its way back to my boss who was then surprisingly very nice and supportive in my final month in the team. I can also say she must have been quite surprised.

Also, a lot can happen in a year.

There was a massive restructure during the time I was away and both bosses left the team and one left the organisation completely. Luckily my new boss approved me undertaking the training upon my return (after explaining that this was approved prior to me going on leave). I also had this in writing before I left, just in case.

I went on leave having positive relationships with both bosses. It’s a small world – I never know when I might cross paths with them again!

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