Is Returning to Work After Maternity Leave a Trick or a Treat?

Anne-Marie's son Harry the Dinosaur

Anne-Marie Walsh shares her experience of maternity leave and coming back to work in Hays as an IT Business Intelligence Consultant.

Almost a year ago, I went on maternity leave from Hays. I was like a kid leaving school for a very long mid-term break.  I was ready to go. Although planning a business intelligence event to coincide with my last day of work, (while being approximately 36 weeks pregnant) was not in fact one of my more einsteinien ideas!

I looked forward to maternity leave, my mind conjured up idyllic scenes of baby massaging, long lazy lunches with other mummies and general bonding bliss with my baby.   I did have some appreciation at that point of the nappies, feeds and late nights but I preferred not to dwell on that. 

Eleven months later and maternity leave is now a distant memory.  What was a bump is now a healthy hearty boy, a little man in the making.  Six months went by in what felt like four weeks.  I remember getting asked if I had to go back to work. I did, but I also wanted to. 

I love my new little man unconditionally.  Weekends are a newfound treasure where all I want to do is chill out with him (sometimes he gets annoyed and insists I let him go to bed). But the working week is great, my head needed it and I needed it. 

You'll be seeing plenty of Halloween masks tonight. But I think we all use masks on a daily basis to differentiate work from our personal lives.  The thing with going on maternity leave and then returning to work is that, for a while, it is confusing as to which mask you should be wearing. 

I wear the work mask and get motivated by getting the right people for the right job.  I also get energy from my client and candidate interaction and finding out about the market changes in the last six months.  They hadn’t changed too much - Oracle and Microsoft business intelligence experts were still highly in demand.

I also get to actually drink a warm coffee (new mums understand a sup of warm coffee while handling a new baby is the Holy Grail) and socialise with colleagues once more.  But in the evenings there is a change.  It is no longer ‘Oh I have worked a very long day I deserve to put my feet up…or do yoga…or some such thing’. Now it’s like a military operation… pick up your baby, make a gazillion bottles for your baby, make other food for your baby, clean up after your baby, bath your baby and try and play with your baby.

A discourse on ‘mindfulness’ is pervasive in health and psychology media at the moment.  It comes from eastern traditions and involves paying conscious attention to experiences as they unfold, so your head is neither caught in the past, or the future, but in the present.  Having a baby taught me to be more mindful.  Instead of wondering what I should be doing now or what I would be doing in ten years I had to be present and attending to a hungry, sleepy and at times, smelly little creature.  This was no time for daydreaming.  Equally, with the return to work it has struck me that one way to negotiate the work life balance is to be more mindful.  So when you are at work focus fully on that and when you are with your little person, give that your full attention. I suspect this may be more difficult than it sounds but a good thing to strive for nonetheless. 

I also figure this can’t be all bad for my little man.  He has a relatively competitive mum.  If I wasn’t chipping away at my own monthly plans I would be monitoring his developmental milestone and putting in some performance improvement measures. I suspect Crèche may be a breather for this baby! Some people choose to be working mums, some choose to be stay-at-home mums, others don’t have a choice.  I want to be a happy mum and for me that involves trying to balance home and work life.  It helps to be working in Hays, an organisation that supports that. 

Coming back to work has had its challenges, yes I am super busy and yes I have had the odd maternal pang of guilt, wanting to extend the weekends….  But I like being busy and I think it makes you value the time you have with your little one all the more.  I also value work more. Being a stay-at-home mum would actually have been a very bad career choice for me.   I always was a nerdy child so I identify with those kids that enjoy leaving school for the mid term break but really are secretly ready to go back next Monday morning.  

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Anne-Marie Walsh

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IT Recruitment Consultant
HAYS Recruiting experts in Information Technology

2 Dawson Street Dublin 2
 T: +353 1 6190505
E: anne-marie.walsh@hays.com

What makes Hays a great place for me to work?

Hays Ireland are endorsed by the Great Place to Work Institute as a 'Best Workplace 2013', so I thought I’d let you know what makes Hays a great place for me to work.

I've just passed the sixth anniversary of my first day in Hays. Do most people remember the date when they started a job?  Up until then, I wouldn't have had a notion of the dates I started in other companies, but I guess I subconsciously knew this one would be special.

Six years is a long time to stay in a company in today’s culture. Up until that last week in September 2007, the longest I had spent in one job was two years. For a number of reasons, including freelancing, I was like the ‘Littlest Hobo’, turning up somewhere for a while, then moving on. I worked in a wide variety of marketing roles in all sorts of companies and was fortunate to have only one bad experience. However, I had a good feeling about Hays from the moment the consultant rang me about my application.

Even my two interviews, with the MD and another director, were enjoyable experiences. And I must add this was not something I usually felt in interviews. On my first day, throughout my first week and through what I call ‘the full bedding in period’ (six months), everyone was really friendly and supportive. I was waiting for the catch - the horrible department or the nasty colleagues who had been putting on smiley faces because I was new – it didn't come.

I’m lucky, in that I really enjoy what I do as a career. In Hays, I got a chance to put all my skills to the test, which was great. I also have a boss, the MD, who really values marketing as a function and values my input, to the point I was invited to join the senior management team a few years ago. Couple this with the friendly, supportive staff and you have an environment where I was looking forward to get back to work after my honeymoon. And that is in no way a reflection on the relationship with my lovely wife!

As I mentioned before, I've worked in a lot of companies and one thing I've learned over the years is that the salespeople are always the kings and queens of the company, as they bring home the bacon. In my view sales is completely complimented by marketing, but I’m pragmatic enough to know which one most companies prioritise.

To be honest, my biggest fear when I was deciding on whether to join Hays, was working in a company comprising 80% sales staff. I had worked with sales people before and my friends and family had told me some interesting stories from their own companies about these brash, rude, ego types. That’s not my experience with Hays. Maybe it’s because it’s their mission to find the right person to transform an organisation and the right job to change someone’s life, that our sales people are incredibly warm and friendly, whether juniors just learning the ropes, or directors with over a decade in the job.

But yet they are still sales people, which means they need a certain environment to thrive – targets and rewards. I've always understood this, which is why I never had an issue organising prizes for incentives schemes that included exotic safaris and the US Open tennis final in New York. The way I looked on it was, if I wanted those types of prizes, I’d need to do that type of job.

Nonetheless, other non-sales staff had a different view, some felt as though they were inferior members of the company. When the task was set by my MD to analyse this view and how we could rectify it, I put my hand up for the project team.

So a team of marketing, finance and administration staff set about devising a survey to understand the needs of people who worked outside the sales function and began the journey to rectify it.

For just over a year now, we have been running the ‘Hays Ireland Ladders Programme’. Devised for all non-sales staff, it is a scheme for recognition and reward. It is available for all members of the company to say thanks to someone in HR, administration, finance, facilities or marketing, who has went above and beyond the call of duty to help them out.

It comprises a Ladder of three Steps. It starts with the process of making a nomination. For example, I can nominate a member of any team, including my own. The proposal is then reviewed by a non-biased party for suitability. Upon approval, the nominee receives a mail informing them they have a Step on the Ladder, the mail includes why the nominator thinks that person deserves a Step and the nominee’s manager is cced on the mail.

On Step 2 of the Ladder, the process above is replicated, but the recipient gets a treat of their choosing, worth up to €25. On Step 3 of the Ladder, there is the added bonus of a luxury meal with other staff members and entry into one of the incentive scheme draws, in this case, a glamorous trip to Paris for the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe horse-race. After Step 3, it reverts back to Step 1, where you start building for your second ticket into the draw.

There was much excitement when the six names were pulled from the tombola in June and since then I have been beavering away, organising the trip. Then one of the lucky winners had to pull out at the last minute, so we got the opportunity to draw a new name.

This is where it gets a bit awkward. I am eligible for the Ladders Programme and was fortunate enough to get three nominations that were approved. However, with my involvement on the organisational side of the Ladders Programme and the prize, I didn't feel right putting my name into the hat.

And sure wouldn't you know, my name got pulled out of the blooming hat! I felt incredibly uncomfortable with it all, but that was eased by the fantastic support of people throughout the company. It would have been easy to shout ‘fix’ but they cheered my name and sent me congratulations - staff across the company, from junior to senior. And that to me is what makes Hays a great place to work!

Anyone have any tips for Sunday??                                                                                                  Tweet

Stephen Flanagan
Senior Marketing Manager

Ireland

HAYS Recruiting experts worldwide
16 Fitzwilliam Street Upper
Dublin 2

T: +353 1 619 0580
F: +353 1 670 4738　
E: stephen.flanagan@hays.com

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Hays Ireland is proud to be endorsed by the Great Place to Work Institute as a 'Best Workplace 2013'. Click here for more.

No flights of fancy - we are airborne!

Back in late 2007 and 2008 the talk was of a soft landing. Evidence abounded of the impending downturn, but very few people called it as it was - a disaster of grotesque proportions just around the corner. Just why we thought the landing would be soft, is hard to recall. Looking back at the numbers from leading edge industries and sectors, the picture was abundantly clear – we weren’t so much heading for a soft landing as hitting a brick wall, falling off a cliff – choose your metaphor, the clear signs were there that the trip was over. However, after five years of mass unemployment, sectors destroyed and beatings from our EU and IMF colleagues, I believe we've finally come out the other side. To explain my reasoning I need to take us back to where it all began.  

In early 2007 the streets were full of BMWs and Mercedes and regular people were deciding on whether to go for that third or fourth property. In the Hays offices, we were flying around the world trying to find architects and engineers from the Far East and Africa to import into Ireland. Our offices were packed with Eastern Europeans flooding over to fill the labour void on the huge development sites of the South Docklands and elsewhere.

By July it had stopped dead in its tracks. The phone was still ringing, but it was Irish architects looking for a move as their firm’s prospects suddenly looked bleak. Anyone in housing was getting out quick, and then, in October activity froze in a recession that hit the entire construction sector like a tsunami. Eighteen months into the recession a sector that accounted for over 10% of GDP and employed over a quarter of a million people had halved in output and lost half its employees. Some soft landing!

Looking back is instructive whilst trying to figure out what might be happening now in the economy, and, more importantly, what might happen next. The recruitment sector is often overlooked as a key indicator of changes in the economy, but I would argue it’s the first place to look. Staff numbers are the mercury in the economic barometer because they are directly linked to business confidence.  We see defined stages in the economic cycle. In a downturn businesses see a reduction in workload, hiring activity goes on hold, new enquires for permanent staff dry up. Then, as the situation worsens, temporary staff are let go, followed by non-core permanent staff and then, perhaps finally, wholesale redundancies.

All this played out throughout 2007 and 2008, with the recruitment market bottoming out in spring 2009. Since 2010 the sector has been growing, quietly, but steadily and significantly. Now, in 2013, something is happening to that growth that is more significant and, I believe, portends the start of a significant shift in the wider economy.

If we take the graph of hiring activity as an accurate portrait of an economy in decline, then the same can be done for an economy in recovery. The very first thing we would expect to see would be a pick-up in temporary hiring activity, as companies cautiously add numbers. Temporary staff are used to circumvent corporate headcount quotas or to simply cover skills gaps on specific projects. They also provide a tentative re-entry into the labour market when prospects pick up. We have already seen this happen in the IT and finance sectors, both of which are characteristically ‘employment resilient’ in a recession. But now we are seeing it elsewhere, crucially in construction. There is a spring in the step of the partners of those surviving firms of architects and engineers in Dublin. They have work on the drawing board, and their response is evident in the calls we’re getting for short term staff and fixed terms contractors.

This summer two things happened which give me the confidence to state that the economy is undergoing a significant shift in momentum. Overall, cross-sector numbers of temporary workers are almost back to pre-recession levels. Secondly, and most significantly, the source of this momentum comes from the construction sector.  Temporary workers in construction are up 40% compared to this time last year, the biggest growth rate of any sector in which we recruit. It was also reported recently that the large cranes that were once synonymous with the Dublin cityscape have seen an increase in hires by 10%. This only happens at the start of an upturn, and the pace at which it is happening tells me that we are at the critical point of the recovery where, having been parked on the apron for three years, we’re motoring down the runway and primed for take-off.

Talk to the right people, in the right businesses, and they will tell you the same thing. Property recovers first at the top end and in South Dublin property is moving, and moving rapidly; prices are up, sharply. There is an absolute dearth of high quality commercial space in the City and foreign money is acting on this opportunity. The buzz of international financiers hovering around Ireland has turned into a frenzy of activity.

The service sector is growing at its fastest rate in six years and new export orders grow for the 25th successive month. PwC's 2013 CEO Pulse Survey showed business confidence in the Irish economy at its highest level since 2007. Add this to the sustained recovery in employment numbers on a base of three years uninterrupted economic growth, and the start of a recovery is undeniable.

Yet, just as no-one diverted from the ‘soft-landing’ script in 2008, no-one is calling the recovery now. Caution is the watchword, and we’re quick still to fasten to the grimmer aspects of our immediate situation than to focus on the brightening light on the horizon. But it’s clear to me that the recovery has started to take off and we are airborne again.

Hays are hosting a breakfast panel discussion entitled “2013 growth, are you seeing it?” Liam Diamond, the International Tax & Inward Investment expert at PricewaterhouseCoopers will join Goodbody’s Chief Economist Dermot O'Leary and other panellists to give their views and answer questions on where the economic growth is coming from and how businesses can take advantage of the green shoots. For more information and to register go to hays.ie/2013growth

For further information about Hays visit www.hays.ie

Should staff be allowed to browse personal social media at work?

Hays Ireland recently ran a survey asking how much time people spend on social media sites throughout their working hours. Personally, I was surprised to find that 26 per cent of people spend 46 minutes or more during work on the likes of Facebook and Twitter. 

Social media shows no sign of slowing down with more and more sites such as Pinterest and Instagram joining Youtube, Facebook and Twitter keeping people occupied. And whilst a number of people do genuinely use social media as part of their jobs (recruiters being an example), they would still be in the minority.

Of course companies can block social media sites on their staff’s PCs, but is it worthwhile? It’s an expensive process and most people have smartphones in 2013. In addition, social media is just the latest in a long list of technologies in the workplace where you could worry whether staff will be tempted to spend all day socialising. However, employers were able to deal with the introduction of the telephone, email, the internet and mobile technology before social media came along.

The other consideration is - does using social media impair productivity? Productivity isn’t necessarily a result of time spent on completing tasks; it’s the output and quality of work. It’s commonly known that productivity increases with the inclusion of short breaks.  So you could argue that 5 minutes spent sending a tweet or checking their Facebook wall provides an outlet for employees to take a break and then get back to work more focused.

And what makes browsing social media any different to a flick through the newspaper, the smoke break, coffee run or the water cooler chat? Again, it’s just another option to add to the list of distractions that have been around for years.  

Hays New Zealand recently carried out a survey that showed one in four candidates (25.7 per cent) would turn down a job if they did not have reasonable access to sites such as Facebook at work. This has prompted the need for organisations to create a better work life balance, along with a level of freedom and trust in work.  And if you’re lucky enough to work in the likes of Google, you have the added option of the pinball machine or pool table in the workplace. A distraction or a rewarding break for employees?

The majority (57 per cent) of employees in the Hays Ireland survey said they spend between 0 and 10 minutes on social media sites, so we probably don’t need to worry just yet about drastic drops in productivity.  When used in moderation I don’t think using social media in work will not adversely affect productivity, in fact it might just improve it!

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Rachel Ashe
Digital Marketing
www.hays.ie  |  @haysireland