We don't mind the gap!

There are many reasons why an employee may need to break from active employment – bereavement, illness, caring responsibilities at home, parenting responsibilities, career change, education or simply burnout. At Mott MacDonald India we don’t see this as a problem, more of an opportunity.??

There is a growing pool of highly skilled and experienced women and men who have taken a career break and would like to return to work. We want them to join us.?

Our approach to career opportunities is inclusive, gender neutral and competency based. We have a culture that is welcoming to returners, makes them feel valued and offers them support to realise their potential. In India, we have a dedicated Returners’ Programme to encourage applications from those on a career break across all roles advertised. Candidates with gaps in their resumes are proactively considered for suitable roles. ?

Career Break: Then and Now?

When I had my two sons nearly 25 years ago taking a career break was not really thought about, you either carried on working or you didn't. I looked at what would work for me and my family, which led to me working four days a week for about 10 years. Four days a week is a hard choice as you need to be disciplined so that you don't end up working five and getting paid for four! ??

There is much less stigma associated with having a gap in your career today. Professional networks, such as LinkedIn, have introduced the ‘career break’ feature to an individual’s LinkedIn profile. You can choose to describe a gap in your resume as full-time parenting, health and wellbeing, caregiving, layoff, career transition, professional development and other options. This has helped normalise and destigmatise career breaks. ?

Hiring career returners: how ready are we, how ready are they??

The commitment to hiring those who have had a career break is not without challenges. One of the achievements of our India returners’ programme was gaining the buy-in of stakeholders across the business so they had a positive mindset and could help to reduce the anxieties of returners. ?

After a career break, most people are nervous about fitting back into a full-time working role, filling gaps in their knowledge and meeting the performance expectations of peers and senior managers. Simply overcoming self-doubt can be a major challenge.??

The wholehearted commitment of my leadership team – Lijo George , Pooja Rastogi , Rashmi Khunteta ( she/her) , Joe E. , Nisha Hegde , Sakina Husain – ensured we worked as a team to offer our career returner candidates a smooth transition back into the workplace.??

Positive role modelling and celebration of success stories has encouraged business stakeholders to view career returners with more confidence. In a high churn labour market, it is heartening to see loyalty, dedication, gratitude and, over time, colleagues becoming huge assets to the company. ?

Our hiring process has also been strengthened by the participation of many returners on interview panels, where they contributed their insights and experience to our recruitment process. We have seen that a little patience and support from business leaders gives these candidates space to grow. It is important to allow them time to settle in, increase their responsibilities incrementally and set appropriate key performance indicators.??

Inspiring stories?

Today, each of our disciplines has several career returners across India. Venu Shah , for instance, was at the peak of her career leading design team in #Ahmedabad when she took her maternity break. The responsibility of ageing parents, young baby and work pressures led to her taking a break which ended up becoming a decade long. When we approached Venu with an opportunity, she had given up all hope of returning to an active career. Today, Venu is a Principal Engineer – Civil, managing a team of around 60 people and delivering successful projects. Venu looks after her elderly father and has made her son very proud of her achievements and resilience, becoming a great role model for her entire family.

As well as female career returners, we are proud to have male career returners too. Dharmesh Shah was compelled to take a two-year career break owing to personal circumstances. For a man, taking a break to look after a child was met with surprise and disbelief. Dharmesh is now a Principal Engineer – Civil, and has returned to full time work, managing intricate projects and delivering them successfully.??

We are currently finalists at the UK Construction News Awards for our global approach to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion submission, a recognition of the success of our #CareerReturnersProgramme.

If you want to know more about the programme, see our LinkedIn campaign #wedontmindthegap?

#careerreturners #MottMacSouthAsia #MottMacLife?

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