Resurrecting your career after a long break isn’t easy. Stories of those who went through the transition can teach us how to better navigate a way back to work.
No one wants to have to choose between staying on her career path and tending to urgent personal needs, but that’s the situation faced by countless professionals. It has become increasingly difficult to return to work after even a couple of years away. In addition to degrading employees’ quality of life, this blind spot in the business world costs companies dearly due to the premature termination of far too many individuals with promising careers.
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It’s also a major setback to gender equality. Nearly half of all women who leave work to raise children don’t go back, which is especially troubling as women constitute 95 percent of those who take a career break for child-raising or family caring. This statistic was related to INSEAD by Julianne Miles, co-founder of a revolutionary firm called Women Returners, that exists to facilitate the return of women to the workplace.
Sadly, those who successfully resurrect their careers after a hiatus are the exception rather than the rule, but we interviewed executives who have done it to find some tips for returnees. It never seems to be as simple as picking up where they left off, but the coping strategies they developed made their careers even stronger.
The elusive second career
Argyro had no intention of leaving her job as general manager of the Greek subsidiary of a major travel retail company, until she learned she was pregnant with her first child. This came at the same time that her company was being acquired. Her reluctance to be in the post-merger structure, as well as to sacrifice time with her baby, led her to part ways amicably with her employer, but she was not planning a long break.
However, another pregnancy prolonged the gap. She mulled starting over with a second career. This reflection showed her what she most enjoyed was “creating beautiful teams of talented people and helping them grow.” She decided to earn another degree, this time in strategy and HR management, while still pregnant for the second time.
After a failed attempt to return to work after her second baby, Argyro managed to get back after her third child, once she realized that she needed to use her consulting experience as the lever. She spent one year happily developing her consulting abilities, after which she was called by a London-based multinational spirits and beverage company to work as the HR director for its office in Greece. From there, she quickly advanced to roles of increasing seniority.
Reflecting on her career and life journey, Argyro says support from her husband, Tim, has been crucial. He is a very participative parent, and things are equitable between them. They work as a partnership, and balance and development are a priority for both of them.
Full-time fatherhood
Tim also made a choice to value parenting over corporate life, though in a very different way and order than that used by Argyro. One evening he came home from a long business trip in Africa to find a note on his bed from his 9-year-old daughter, asking that he attend a meeting with her ASAP. The next day, she explained, “Daddy, how can I love you if I never see you?” Tim resigned 10 days after this bombshell, fortunately with the knowledge that his wife had been offered an opportunity to take a role at P&G’s European headquarters in Geneva.
Moving to Geneva in itself wasn’t a big challenge, but Tim’s role as full-time father took more getting used to. While Tim was occupied with several other projects at the time, including participating in a small business startup, and designing and building a house, he described his role of father as occupying 90 percent of his time. As his daughters grew older, Tim’s question became, “Can I mix the important parts of being a dad with the world of work?”
Serendipitously, he was contacted by a consultancy firm, and he took on a project, which led to another, and now he’s helping the firm develop its business. This is facilitated by an actively present grandmother who supports and helps out willingly.
Tim says his experience as a full-time dad has made him a better decision-maker. He says he is much better at identifying and setting priorities, and bringing the right mix of emotion and practicality to any choice he faces.
When quizzed on how this works out for the couple, he is unequivocal: It only works if the two are perfectly aligned, and it helps tremendously if there is capital already saved so as to avoid a drastic drop in lifestyle. “Nobody is deprived, but we do control our spending in a way we would not have done a few years ago,” he adds.
Defeating the odds
Shortly after 9/11, Mui Gek, a Singaporean national with a successful career in retail leasing, and her husband decided to move together to his native country of France. She aimed to use her experience to enter the French luxury goods industry, beginning with studying the French language and earning an MBA from a local business school. It was a mammoth task for Mui Gek to find a job in a tough market as a visibly and audibly foreign person in a provincial French city.
She created from scratch an extensive network that included her immediate friends, MBA teachers, and family. Her tireless efforts netted a job with a family business overseeing a large project to explore the Chinese market for shopping centers.
While pregnant with their first child, Mui Gek and her husband decided she would take a break to have the baby and to figure out her next move. However, less than two years later, they found themselves with a toddler and newborn twins. When the twins were coming up to their second birthday, she started to feel it was time to return to work.
Again, networking skills came to the fore, this time leading to an introduction to the recently appointed head of talent at LVMH. Mui Gek’s mix of skills was unusual, to say the least, and not one that neatly fit with any vacant job in the luxury group. Her difference was that, beyond her obvious real estate and retail experience, she had doggedly stayed up to date on workplace issues, on fashion, luxury, and more. This was the clincher.
Eight months later, Mui Gek received a call from LVMH. A new role had been created at the company because its real estate strategy lacked coordination, and an expert hand with negotiation and diplomacy skills could be a great asset. She got the job. Networking furiously to make friends and allies, and using her unique blend of knowledge, passion, and persuasion helped her create a hitherto unheard-of collaboration between previously hostile, competitive brands. She has since been offered increasingly interesting developmental roles.
Getting better
We are aware that the people profiled here are some of “the lucky ones.” They were supported by family and had comfortable finances, however difficult the balancing act may have been. The balance is a lot harder to find if you’re on your own and there is no loving grandma around to babysit—a reality faced by millions.
But generally, hope is improving for anybody in this situation. A growing number of financial institutions and professional service firms—including Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse, Royal Bank of Scotland, J.P. Morgan, and Lloyds Bank—have introduced “returnship programs” for high-caliber professionals who are ready to return to corporate life after having hit the pause button.
So far, Goldman Sachs in the United States reports offering permanent positions to fully half of its returning workers. More recent data on UK returnship programs suggest that retention rates may be even higher.
Clearly, there is much to be gained and to be done for corporations that could undoubtedly make these returns easier, and for returners who face history, tradition, and tough circumstances with courage every day.
This article is republished courtesy of INSEAD Knowledge. © INSEAD 2016.
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