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

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

The Liverpool way?

What is the best way to recruit?

Liverpool Football Club have announced their new manager today, the most important position in the whole club and business. Whilst football recruitment is very different from what we are used to in the world of work, the manner in which this very public process has played out over the past few weeks has made me think of parallels in our business.

Let me start with a brief background to set the context. Liverpool Football Club is arguably the most successful team in the history of English football. In the seventies and the eighties they were the benchmark that other clubs in England and across the world aspired to, both on the pitch and in their business dealings. It was even given a name - the ‘Liverpool Way’. Unfortunately since that glorious period they have had an ignominious fall from grace.

They were bought over by an American conglomerate two years ago who have already been through two managers and have announced their third today. Two weeks ago they told the media they would carry out a rigorous process looking at all applicants for the position. They drew up a long list of targets including some of the best managers / coaches in football and subsequently received widespread criticism.

If you’re not a football fan, this may puzzle you. Why would you not look at all the top options available? Well as someone once said “football is a funny old game”. It can be very insular at times and a bit of a buddy network. So even though, as mentioned before, they are the most important person in the business, it’s typical for clubs to line up one or two targets very quickly instead of doing an extensive search of all the options available to them.

Whilst hiring a football manager for a top premiership club is very different to say, hiring a receptionist, there are similarities to hiring a CEO or a very senior person for a large multinational. There’s more of an executive search or headhunting process. I’m sure if IBM or Accenture were looking for a senior member of staff, they would search far and wide and aim for the very best. So why shouldn’t football clubs?

Nonetheless whilst hiring a CEO, CTO or CFO requires a very a specialised recruitment technique the modern day recruitment methods are catching up fast. The arrival of LinkedIn opened a whole new world to the recruitment consultant. So nowadays when a recruitment consultancy like Hays is looking for the right candidate for a financial controller job or a Java developer or a funds administrator they have a number of techniques. The extensive database of candidates is the first option. Then there’s the broadcast method of advertising, on job boards, in newspapers etc. But the arrival of LinkedIn has made the modern recruitment consultant a headhunter. They will actively seek out passive candidates, not only on LinkedIn but via a wide range of online resources searching for the ideal candidate.

Which brings me to my next point in relation to football. When seeking candidates, it’s not just about qualifications and relevant experience; just as important, if not more, is cultural fit. Sam Allardyce was hired as the Newcastle manager in 2007 and lasted 8 months. Alex McLeish was hired by Aston Villa and lasted 11 months. They had all the credentials but just didn’t fit in. The same thing can happen in the workplace.

Anyone involved in hiring when screening and interviewing candidates should judge whether a candidate is the right cultural fit for a company. This is where the value comes in using experts. A good recruitment consultant can find suitable matches to a job spec but it takes a great consultant to go beyond that and find a candidate who has that special magic that will ensure they will join a company and transform its business.

So Liverpool have hired Brendan Rodgers, a young ambitious manager from a smaller club. Ironically, at face value it looks like after all the media frenzy of the past two weeks they’ve followed every other football club and appointed the second man they’ve interviewed after a short review period, but I’ve no doubt, like any good recruitment consultant they’ve reviewed many, many options before putting through the two best matches.

Time will tell…..