Back to Work after Maternity Leave
Returning to work after having a baby is rough. Throw COVID in too and it’s understandable that anxiety and apprehension levels might be through the roof.
As I navigated my own transition back to work, here are 5 things that I found helpful to ease the reintegration.
Firstly, it’s worth noting that I am not a frontline worker and have the option to work at home and in many ways it’s great.
It eliminated the morning madness of getting everyone up and out of the house to work and childcare and the same at the other end of the day except, the destination is home and bed.
I don’t have to wear a full head of makeup, or have my hair perfect (only the bits people can see on video calls), saving me at least 10/20 minutes in the morning, depending if it was a ‘big shower’ day that included washing and drying my hair.
Boringly, it also means I can use my ‘stretch’ breaks in between calls and tasks to put a wash on or brush the floor, allowing me to keep on top of the household.
It does however throw a lot of other things up in the air and out the window.
As someone who loves the social element of work, I miss the coffees and chats.
If I had to get something done that I hadn’t a clue about or who to talk to, I’d roam the building and door stop people at their desk pleading for advice, getting the job done way quicker than if I relied on emails and phone calls. It’s much harder to placate someone if they are standing at your desk begging for help!
I like wearing my work wardrobe. I’ve invested in ‘nice pieces’ as my mum would say, and I got real enjoyment in putting them on and being ‘work Lorna’ for the day.
In work I’m not remind constantly about the housework and I actually got a break from it.
My commute was my ‘correspondence time’ and I would actually get an interrupted moment to reply to people. Unless I cycled to work, but then that killed two birds with one stone as that was my exercise ticked off the list for the day.
So back to transitioning to work from home. Here’s the 5 things I found really helpful for returning to work during COVID times.
1. Renegotiate Everything at Home
If, like me, on your leave you became housekeeper, live in chef, gardener, person in charge of all errands and house admin, it’s time to re-assess the balance of daily and weekly tasks, ensuring that you can actually fit work back into an already busy day.
Where to start?
Childcare agreements: talk about drop offs, collections, admin, first responder to a sick child and scenario planning around sick children.
With kids you never know what’s going to happen on a daily basis. In our house, we had to talk through behaviours which was going to make the unpredictable manageable. They included solution orientated communication (as opposed to ballistic, stress fuelled, wtf are we going to do type communication), flexibility and with our best efforts, try to be as understandable to the other persons situation as possible.
We both have to get our jobs done at the end of the day so we have talked through splitting our days and also trying to give each other as much rest as needed in order to make it through trying times.
Work expectations: have a conversation with your boss/ team around expectations and put the same scenario’s to them. This eased my anxiety. Given the times we are in, this is going to be inevitable.
Household work: who does what, when what needs to happen, how often things need to be done. Split out household admin, insurance, bills etc.
Extra’s: Lie in’s, rest times, time alone, extra-curricular activities for the kids: who takes who where, the weekly shop, meal prep, and so on.
2. It will serve us returning Mums well to remember this:
What to do:
Place this quote (or another that you like) somewhere that you can see it every day.
We are being asked to navigate a though terrain: one that can be lonely, fearful, stressful, draining, hopeless and monotonous, with little freedom to do what you want, when you want, with who we might like to. On days or weeks when it feels rough remember this and be nice to yourself.
This quote has been a huge validation for me that we are navigating new and though times.
3. Reconnect and grow your network
"Professional Socialising (networking) is not about just connecting people. It's about connecting people with people, people with ideas, and people with opportunities." -- Michele Jennae
If my first day in the office had involved physically being in the building, it would have made reconnecting a whole lot easier. Plus, I probably would have connected with people I didn’t intend to just by going to the bathroom or the printer. Working remotely from my attic, very different!
What to do:
Get comfortable with video calls and use phone calls as a backup.
Make a list of all the people you want to reconnect with again in work. Maybe start easy with your ‘work friends’. Ask them is there anyone else that would be of benefit talking to that you might not know yet or could be helpful in giving you some insight into a related area of interest.
Map your stakeholders and think about what questions would be really beneficial to ask them. Maybe something along the lines of
What are the major projects, that they/ their team has managed that has contributed to the business?
Where can you see my role fitting in to helping with your objectives?
Is there anything that would be useful to know as I plan out my next 3 months and get ready to present back to my boss/ team etc.?’
Get involved in team meetings, not just your own team, but other teams to reintroduce yourself to old colleagues and to new ones. It’s a great way to get your profile out there once again and begin to integrate back into the business.
4. Find your community or outlet
With a lot more of us working from home is easy to get cabin fever and get caught up in the constant routine, leaving us feeling bored, lethargic or burnt out.
What to do:
Scope your opportunities.
For me, I joined a local parents GAA team. Really! Rain, hail or shine they practice outside. It gets me moving, gives me another focus and importantly gets me out of my house, meeting and socialising with other mums.
What about a virtual community? Is there a weekly meet up online that you could join that you are interested in?
Are you a member of an association that regularly holds talks, skills development, coffee mornings / nights? I recently joined a fabulous virtual event hosted by the IACAT in which a well-known Art Psychotherapist Cathy Malchiodi lead us through her work and got us doing some art too. It was a great start to the weekend and really lifted my motivation.
What about virtual book clubs?
Check Eventbrite for virtual seminars and workshops, LinkedIn or your local enterprise office. Check Cuidiú, Mum Talks (https://www.facebook.com/MumTalks), whatever, where ever. It’s about a supportive or inspiring community leading you (or distracting you) through this transition.
If you can’t find one that suits why not set up one of your own!
5. Getting it all done. The ‘Urgent Important Matrix’ Tool
"What is important is seldom urgent and what is urgent is seldom important."
Former US President Eisenhower
There is so much going on at the moment. We are living in a time where every week our freedoms and our routines are at the mercy of the government. It’s hard to know what is around the corner. Being a parent we think we would be used to this but COVID has thrown a few more curve balls into the mix and as a result can make us feel like we can’t decipher what is important and what’s not at the moment. For me the school applications started to arrive the same week I went back to work and it was just ‘another thing’ that needed to be added into the mix. Ahh!
What to do:
I stay grounded, organised and focused using the ‘Urgent-Important Matrix’. Here’s what it looks like.
Using a simple grid, it defines tasks according to their importance and urgency:
Quadrant 1 - Crises - URGENT and IMPORTANT
Quadrant 2 - Goals and Planning - NON-URGENT and IMPORTANT
Quadrant 3 - Interruptions - URGENT and NOT IMPORTANT
Quadrant 4 - Distractions - NOT URGENT and NOT IMPORTANT
What do we mean here by Important and Urgent?
Urgent Tasks: cause us to react, we stop what we're currently doing and work on the urgent task instead. Important Tasks: lead us towards our overall mission or goals and these key actions often require planning, organization and initiative.
Find out more information here. https://www.thecoachingtoolscompany.com/coaching-tools-101-what-is-the-urgent-important-matrix/
The link gives you a more detailed look at the individual Urgent Important quadrants and how we might feel when we are in it.
For example: when we spend a lot of time in the urgent important quadrant we become stressed and burned out. Time to reassess!
It then looks at the suggested action to take in each quadrant and also a really helpful coaching tip.
I have included a copy of the Urgent-Important Matrix that I use in the resource section of my website. Download free and get yourself organised!
If you like to do all things digital check out Eisedo (https://www.eisedo.com), it’s a task management tool that prioritizes your to-do list using the Eisenhower principle of urgency and importance. Real handy!
Parting Thoughts
This is certainly not a definitive list of tips before going back to work after baby, but just some that have had the biggest impact on my transition so far. In these times you have got to get creative and as a parent I am sure getting more creative as time goes by!
For help on your parenthood journey or transitioning back to you check out: www.lornalambert.ie
Contact me on hello@lornalambert.ie
Phone or message me on +353 87 646 1257.
I also make an appearance on https://www.instagram.com/lorna_lambert/ and https://www.facebook.com/lornalambertservices
Join the journey!