Working Parents and Career Break Returner Blog Series

The challenges and solutions in this blog series are around how to be a career professional and parent and succeed at both, preparing for and overcoming career break return challenges and how to progress your career when you are ready.

All names have been changed in the working examples provided to protect client confidentiality

Moving Onward and Upward at the right time for you

Some career break returners want to successfully manage the day to day transition from home to working life before ever considering putting their foot to the floor on the career progression path. Often at that time, nothing could be further from their minds, in fact.

Others see the return to work as just the right point in time to go for it, all hands to the pump, with a clean slate, and work towards the next promotion.

In my experience, the vast majority of women fall into the category of those “deciding to decide”. This is a pool of hugely talented women who, having become mothers for the first time, are suddenly plunged into a brave new world of changed priorities. They feel in that particular moment that getting to the next nativity play or sports day is far more important than moving up to the next rung on the partnership or promotional ladder. Yet equally they have no desire to give up on their future career progression. Nor should they have to.

Working Example

Career break returner clients ruminate on the age-old dilemma of how flexible work options may support or potentially hinder them. In coaching sessions, clarification is often sought about career progression, albeit without rushing any decisions to move rapidly up the promotional rungs.

One in particular, Bettina, Senior Associate, wanted to be sure that if she went for partnership, she could do so whilst part time with family commitments. She devised a realistic two year plan, to avoid any sense in between times of treading water. Interestingly, over that time she identified her area of development to be the need to project more confidence and gravitas in her role, particularly in meetings. She wanted to speak more forcefully, and to strip out her subconsciously weak language, such as the use of words or phrases “just” and “it will only take a minute.” As she saw it, the law firm was still looking for a traditionally “male” skillset (visibility in meetings, confidence, bringing in business). She wanted to develop her leadership skills but was torn with how exactly she should do so – between a Sheryl Sandberg approach requiring her to “Lean in” to and get on with male culture, or bringing her “whole self” to work, as advocated by Mary Portas, in her brilliant book, “Work Like a Woman – A Manifesto for Change.”

3 strategies for nailing next steps to career progression

For each of us, how we react and feel is deeply personal; there are no rights or wrongs. Here is the advice that helped me get my own next move right:

1. Take your time

I’m a big advocate of the Maria Toledo’s “Start before you’re ready” approach in business as a means by which to overcome limiting beliefs. Yet in the case of career break returners, I caution initially doing anything in a hurry. Take time to adjust, if that is what you need to do. The transition of returning to work after an extended period away cannot be under-estimated.

2. Be honest and authentic

After having children, the ladder you wish to climb now might or might not be the same one as you were climbing before. There are additional considerations – not least an increased burden on finances if, for example, you are working reduced hours, earning less money, and you have increased outgoings due to exorbitant childcare costs. Look at your goals and ambitions as they are now, not as they were when younger and child-free. What now is your authentic path? Keep your “why” under constant review.

3. Don’t forget you

During the two and a half years that I was on extended maternity leave I learned so much about little people, and of course myself. The unconditional ease with which we prioritise, as though our life depends upon it, another human being’s needs over and above our own. The compromising of so many of our own personal pleasures to ensure, as best as we are able, the unshakable confidence and all-encompassing happiness of someone else, comes with the territory.

Thinking of Ruth, career break returner, I realise these are not uncommon feelings. As she put it, she’d been out of law for so many years raising a family she had “lost something of me over the last thirteen years.” This manifested itself in lost confidence and a loss of financial independence too. It’s worth remembering though that whilst out of professional life for a while, we each develop a multitude of cross-transferrable skills and whilst we should become savvy about how we package them up on a CV, we should do exactly that – and invite employers or recruiters to consider our skills based on our potential as opposed to current position.

Leading by Example

The brief moments free of responsibility when I used to sneak to my beloved exercise class (as I did religiously twice a week), when childcare, energy levels and mummy guilt allowed, were priceless.

And yet at night, and during nap times, I realised there was a very large part of me that I hadn’t compromised or lost: the hard working, determined, financially independent Barrister-come-Coach. Whilst the period of time I had spent away from Chambers might have been unusually long, I had been working creatively, strategising in an unconventional way whilst still keeping those little people at the core of my very being. Oh, and working on my new business of course!

Avoiding a lifetime of regret

Australian Palliative care nurse, Bronnie Waring, conducted research on the regrets of the dying. She found that one of the top five regrets of the dying was “I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.” Working parents don’t look back at life wishing they’d spent less time with their kids now, do they?

How can you carve out more time to cover all bases?

 

Nikki Alderson Biography

Nikki Alderson, specialist coach, speaker and author, and former Criminal Barrister with 19 years’ experience:

• supports organisations, law firms and barristers’ Chambers to retain female talent; and
• empowers female lawyers to achieve career ambitions.

Nikki specialises in 3 areas:

• Women leadership transition and change;
• Enhanced career break returner support; and
• Workplace resilience, mental toughness, confidence and wellness.

She is the author of Amazon No.1 Bestseller Raising the Bar: empowering female lawyers through coaching, (https://amzn.to/3fodKQX) nominee for the Inspirational Women Awards, Champion of the Year Category and finalist in the 2020 Women in Law Awards, Legal Services Innovator of the Year and 2019 International Coaching Awards, International Coach of the Year Category.