I returned from maternity leave to find the office transformed

The thrill of having adult company again

People often ask me what it’s like to return to work after maternity leave. It’s not like returning from a holiday, it feels like starting a new job all over again, even if it is the same company that you left just before your baby arrived. Except that it’s filled with fear, apprehension, excitement and freedom – yes, I said freedom! Mothers understand – work can be freedom. This is what I experienced when I returned to work last November.

I returned to a new team, new manager and new office. Clearly there were changes to the organisation during my year off. So day one was a pretty nervy one, but I did enjoy the journey to work with the piercing sound of silence in the back of my car. I sat at my new desk, and was soon surrounded by my new work colleagues – all adults. This was a far cry from my previous 12 months which were spent with three young children at home, and play dates with other children on an almost daily basis – fun in it’s own way.

However much I was going to miss that old life, on day one in the office I was pretty sure I was going to like my new life.

Enjoying being the newbie

While not everyone experiences a gentle return to work, I had a gentle ease in over a series of weeks. I was like a baby all over again – a sponge to soak up as much knowledge about this organisation and it’s processes, which had experienced transformational change during the time I had been away. I had to learn a new language too - ‘Cloud’, ‘Transformational’, ‘Digital’. I just sat and took it all in. Who would have thought things could change so much in 12 months? I suppose we don’t notice the changes so much when we are in the office everyday but having been away for a year, I noticed. What struck me most was that I liked how things had changed.

You didn’t miss me?

Although I was in effect like a new starter, I knew I had to put my stamp on things again, to establish an interest in areas where there were clear gaps and where I could make an impact within my first few weeks. The reality was that this organisation got on just fine without me, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t the better for my return and I was keen to show my value. I’m not alone here, a lot of my friends who had returned from maternity leave had also warned me about this – being a new mother but still wanting to show that you are totally committed to your job. Yep, the pressures of being a full time mother and a full time professional is a challenge that so many of us juggle, and we grow to live with it, and some grow to love it. I already love it.

The Truth is Found in the Numbers

One thing I’d learned over the years is that knowledge is everything, so I immersed myself in learning about the numbers with the greatest tool that exists - Microsoft Excel. Isn’t it the best? While I will never claim to being an Excel genius, I was eager to get my teeth into what reports to look at, which regions were excelling, where did this number and that number come from, why the numbers looked like this and not this, what was working in one country and not in another, the average deal sizes across the different countries, the people in their teams (yes, learning all of their names as this can be a huge benefit when looking at data). So after a few weeks I had this to a T, I knew all of the reports that existed, and most importantly, I was comfortable with them and felt like I could put my hand on any number that was asked of me. Bingo.

Then all of a sudden I heard two letters ‘DV’. ‘What is DV?’, I asked, to which the reply was ‘It’s the one source of truth to all of our reporting needs – it’s a live dashboard. What? Does that mean no more Excel?

Beyond Excelling

When DV was launched, it was hailed as being the answer to all of our problems. When we go into a meeting we are all singing off the same hymn sheet, in other words, we have a single source of truth. No more justifying one cut of data in Excel versus a slightly different cut. Now all divisions had the same data, all cut the same say, and better still, all in real time. Could this be too good to be true? But I am not sure I was ready for DV, I had just learned all about the business and felt comfortable with my weeks of self-teaching on Excel. However, as I remembered myself saying just a few weeks ago, I needed to be agile and embrace the change.

Not only did I attend the training calls, I decided to go a step further and request to be a super user. Now you remember I said I’m not a reporting whizz kid? So this was another step into the unknown for me, but in my head I wanted to prove to myself that I was committed to learning this new tool.

Days past and I once again immersed myself in the numbers and the data. DV became my new best friend. I somewhat felt like I was being unfaithful to my old friend, Excel. But my new workmate just seemed to make life much easier instantly.

This Time in Real Time

Our fingers were on the pulse, we had real time data to run the business, it was fantastic and still is remarkable. It has become so much easier to run the business – much less time justifying numbers and explaining ourselves. My reporting time was cut in half at least. No longer was I preparing presentations for meetings; instead I was sharing dashboards real time. Nobody questioned the data as it had not been manipulated. Everyone could see it was the view they also had. A new harmony. It’s nice to be back.