8 steps to a smooth return to work
Had a master plan about what was going to happen, when and by whom, before you went on maternity leave? Not to worry. Here’s the eight step guide what to make your return as smooth as possible. Click on the take away icon at the bottom of the page to get the pdf version to do just that (take it away). And if you like what you read bagsy a copy on Amazon in paperback or kindle for... Read More
Women at The Top
Hilary Devey is back in the media today (18/3/13) and so I re-publish this post that was first published on 7th September 2012. My back is up after three minutes of Hilary Devey on the BBC’s two-parter “Women at the Top” (whaaaaaat? I’m screeching in a restrained, forehead wrinkling kind of way when she makes a throw away comment about women not wanting the top jobs enough... Read More
Power of voluntary work on CV attractiveness
A CV that is polished, to the point and relevant to the job you are applying for is likely to get picked out by a busy recruiter and research by academics Christa Wilkin and Catherine Connelly suggests voluntary work is beneficial, so long as it’s relevant. This is likely to be very good news for women and men who’ve taken a career break to raise children and have spent... Read More
Senior Civil Servant Job-Share
Picture courtesy of The Guardian website Once the preserve of women at the lower end of a company’s org’chart, job-sharing is now happening in the upper echelons of management. At least it is if you know where to look or more importantly if you know how to ask. I wonder if that appeals to you or your colleagues? If it does, read on and please forward this month’s working motherhood... Read More
Babies in the office
Good on Addison Lee for giving babies in the office a go. Or good on their PR team for spotting a great opportunity to flag their brand to millions of people via the BBC. “Special and unique” are the words Addison Lee’s (the largest private hire company in the UK) managing director Liam Griffin used to describe his one day ‘babies in the office’ experiment. Stressful... Read More
Mothering by Numbers
Journalists often call me asking for my views on working motherhood (there’s a whole treasure trove of it here) and lately the stand-out conversations have been around motherhood and numbers: what’s the best age to have a baby and what’s the ideal length of maternity leave? A stateside friend of mine has also been canvassing my views on the impact of upping her working week... Read More
The Triple Burden
Rummaging around my PC looking for a the beginnings of an article I thought I’d written I found something else I started writing over a year ago and never quite finished before forgetting about it. I give you an eplanation of what the ‘triple burden’ of motherhood is and why it’s an issue. Let me know what you think: The Triple Burden: Bad Behaviour, Broken... Read More
Working Mothers Holiday Enid Blyton Style
We’ve been a long time in Noddy Land in our house (no really, this is a literary reference not me berating myself for a series of school girl errors of late ha ha!) and have recently moved on to Enid Blyton’s The famous Five. We’ve started with Five on a Treasure Island which is the first of Blyton’s much loved middle class, isn’t-life-wonderful, childhood adventure stories... Read More
5000 mentors or free childcare?
UK Home Secretary Teresa May has to be applauded for continuing to bang her drum for women despite her (male) colleagues’ attempts to do away with policies that would help women get back into employment and do more whilst they’re there. (That’s Steve Hilton I’m thinking about). Among the stats Ms May revealed in her speech on 4/11/11 on women and the economy... Read More
As Good as You Ever Were
Last month I took part in a seminar Credit Suisse hosted which asked the question: What factors help and hinder the recruitment and retention of talented women? Sitting next me to was a lady older than me who hadn’t had children. We got talking about why a friend of hers (a talented marketer) who’d taken eight years out to have and raise children kept turning down job offers... Read More
