Mind the Gap!

Career breaks should not be a hushed statement in a closed room. Returning mothers must make their career breaks as bold statements

 “Yes, I took a career break post my maternity for child care. After five years, now I know I am all set to re-enter the workforce. Can’t wait to see myself back in action,” declared, Bharti Peshwar, aged 35 sitting in her interview for the post of a Project Manager in an IT multinational company. Earlier, before motherhood set in Bharti’s life, she spearheaded an ERP project implementation in a top IT company. Bharti is one of the very few women today who takes pride in announcing her break in career. Her bold statement didn’t startle the interviewers at the panel. For what was considered as a career suicide till some time ago, has been normalized by leading companies and to make career breaks as a natural phenomenon in the course of the Indian Women Professional‘s (IWP) career. Women who shied away from speaking about their career breaks in the resume are making that as a bold statement, in fact that is an employability pitch at the interview table.

 The three Ms – Maternity, Motherhood and Mobility

Women like Bharti often end up taking career breaks post maternity, not because of lack of maternity leave or benefits. But because of a lack of support system and the primary caregiving responsibility. Women have both a physical and mental connect which often tend to hinge being the sole ownership of the child’s growth stage. Add to the fact that the gender stereotype of a woman being a caregiver post maternity is so deeply ingrained in our collective societal psyche that even if a young mother wants to continue work, often she is weighed down by the huge guilt of leaving an infant back at home.

It becomes worst, if a woman has to relocate to another city, and if she doesn’t have the support of extended family members like a mother or a mother-in-law, then the dependability on an external caregiver or a day care centre becomes inevitable. Often, many women and their families are not comfortable with this aspect of outsourcing an infant’s caregiving responsibilities. 

In addition to the weight of being primary caregiver is the burden of being the stakeholder of all household chores and most young mothers end up doing second shifts at home if they go back to work soon after maternity.

So, particularly at the mid-career stage, women are trying to balance increasing work responsibilities with increasing home responsibilities. This double whammy puts thousands of women under punishing routines leading to physical and mental stress. In such a scenario, many women who are fortunate enough to have a partner who can cover the financial responsibility end up asking themselves – ‘should I opt in, opt out or take a career break’?

Career or No Career By Choice

Yes, this brings us to the million dollar predicament that most IWPs face. And that answer should be to most part be taken unilaterally by her. In this case, it must have been Bharti’s choice to opt to be part of the growing up years of her child. Taking a career break should be left to the choice of women. If someone wants to go on a break to take care of the child during the growth stage, she should be able to do it without any guilt and fear that she may not be able to comeback. This is similar to the sabbaticals that many professionals take during their career to pursue their passion/hobby or even higher studies for upskilling purposes.

Sometime back when we at Avtar surveyed the managers/supervisors of second career women, we found that over 55% of them rated their engagement with career returnees, very pleasant. Line managers felt that women making comebacks after a break came with greater resolve, discipline and intent, facts they established while interning.

The other case in point is that in many cases an IWP’s break helps enable the career of her partner. There is often child care and elder care responsibilities on the IWP during her break, which translates into social investment that happens as a consequence of her career break.

Normalizing career breaks and making it a natural phenomenon in the course of an IWP’s career can help strengthen the talent case of second career women. It was not long back that the paid ML mandate was 12 weeks – doubling it to 26 weeks is an indication of greater acceptance around challenges of motherhood.

India Inc. Getting Little Comfortable

In the 21st century, the ultimate goal of every organization should be to find ways to create new workplace rules and processes that allow people of any gender, at any life stage, to have a normal life that will help them in pursuing their career goals. Just like a young mother, a young father also might be keen to spend some time with their new-borns. But the question is, how many organizations invest in paternity leave that is practical and functional? In several organizations, even if the paternity leave is there, many men opt out of availing this benefit out of fear of gender stereotyping and biases. Similarly, scores of Indian men might be keen on taking a career break for elder care. This is particularly important for a society like India, where the son’s primary duty is considered as looking after the health and well-being of parents in old age. Again the question is, how will our society perceive a man who opts to take a career break for elder care? So it is time the rules of workplace are rewritten and career breaks are normalized just like any other life stage event in a person’s life. 

Taking a career break is in fact can even be a healthy practice. We are talking about agile and non-linear career paths. Career breaks enable people to re-skill / upskill or just take a break to comeback rejuvenated.

It is important for organizations to encourage people to confidently share their career break stories without any apologies, like how Bharti shared her story. The point is career breaks need not be viewed with skepticism, poor career management or professional ability. Normalizing career breaks boosts confidence levels of young mothers willing to return to careers.

If an organization looks to be inclusive, one of the first steps that it should consider doing is an audit of its employees and do a needs analysis. It is important to understand this and map it into three categories:

●     Needs that are important to the employee and are completely in alignment with the Company’s goals

●     Needs that are important to the employee and partially fulfil Company’s goals

●     Needs that are important to the employee and do not come in the way of Company’s goals

This categorization will also give a clear picture of whether a need can be fulfilled using a company policy or be provided on a case-to-case basis. Based on this, the company should consider fulfilling these needs – as part of company policy and practice – and create a culture of true inclusion. So, if the analysis shows that most of the employees require to take a career break at some point in time, it should be a part of the organization’s plan and structure.

In this age of uber-working, we need to re-look at the whole “9-5, 5-day” work structure. Unlike the present, the future workforce will demand a fluid structure that encourages maximum quality in the minimum time.

For the records, all of the 2018 Working Mother & AVTAR Top 10 Best Companies for Women in India (2018 Top 10) and 51% of the 2018 Working Mother & AVTAR 100 Best Companies for Women in India (2018 – 100 Best), have formal programs to recruit returning women/second career women. Nine per cent of all women hires in 2018-100 Best are second career women.

All companies with formal second career hiring tracks also have structured reintegration programs to help women returning after career breaks, make smoother SEGUEs back to the workplace. The various initiatives that are part of the reintegration are:

●     Training program for upgrading technical competence – 72% of these companies provide this.

●     Training programs for building soft skills (such as bridging the confidence gap) - 72% of these companies provide this.

●     Orientation program for overview of business perspectives and organizational mission/vision - 87% of these companies provide this.

●     Connecting to mentors through networks/buddy systems - 79% of these companies provide this.

●     Assignment of short term projects – 69% of these companies provide this.

●     Leadership training - 59% of these companies provide this.

Meanwhile, on another line, but an important one, closing the gender chore gap is of utmost importance in order to be able to provide a level playing field for women. It is important to bring in social awareness to this aspect.

Career breaks must be seen as one of the incentives that organizations offer as part of the whole flexible working package for employees, particularly women employees. When an employer starts seeing career breaks as normal, confidence levels of those hundreds of mothers who are intentional on getting back to work will raise to unprecedented levels. Of course, an increase in India’s GDP as well and we will get to hear more Bhartis!

 Why should you hire returning mothers?

Young mothers on career breaks have numerous positive skills they bring to the table. They are the most employable lot because:

They are compassionate & empathetic - A new mother knows the pain of being judged at every turn in life. Every young mother who knows this pain will sincerely avoid being judgmental about others, especially when in it comes to her own team members. This will reduce the gender stereotyping and biases within a team.

They are responsible and will be a great team player – A young mother knows her responsibilities very well and is often highly committed to achieving her goals. Because she has already navigated her own share of disappointments and unexpected twists and turns during motherhood, she will value the progress that her team is making and will acknowledge it.

They have high resilience quotient – Mothers are highly resilient because they have already faced quite a bit of needless criticism from close quarters and have the ability to move on. They have also learnt to listen to the demands of situations well and have the skill to respond accordingly. Quite often, their intuition guides them to the right solution.

A modified version of this article was published in Livemint. (https://www.livemint.com/money/personal-finance/opinion-make-that-career-break-your-friend-and-move-ahead-1557663335856.html)