After recently returning to work after maternity leave for the second time, Emily has learned a lot about gracefully returning to work after an extended leave. Peter and Emily discuss how to set yourself and your team up for success before, during, and after an extended leave.
Guest: Emily Caddell
Peter: Welcome to the Biz and Life Done Well podcast, where we explore what it means and what it takes to do business and life well. I’m your host, Peter Wilson. If you’re like me, you’re intrigued by stories of common people who have achieved uncommon success in business and life. Join me as I interview fascinating people about how they got started, their successes and failures, their habits and routines, and what inspires them.
Emily: Today, have a special guest. It’s Emily Caddell. She is the marketing director for Biz Marketing, and she and I are going to talk about her own experience and her tips for returning to work after an extended time away. She recently had a new baby and was way on maternity leave, and she has learned a lot along the way and would like pass along some of those tips. So we’re gonna have a chat about that today.
Hello, Emily.
Emily: Hey, Pete. Glad to be here.
Emily: So let’s talk about what’s up. So you were recently away for how long were you away?
Emily: I think about nine weeks off after I had my baby.
Emily: Alright. We just say thank you for coming back.
Emily: For sure. Appreciate it. Of course.
Emily: And so what are your tips for preparing ahead of time? I think we should probably break this conversation down into kind of three chunks. What did you do ahead of time? What did you do while you were away or what was done while you were away and then finally coming back? So it’s really kind of three areas that we wanna cover today.
So what did you do? What did you prepare and how did you prepare up when you went away?
Emily: Yeah, so my first tip is just to evaluate your situation. So obviously, maternity leave, it was a long time coming. I had a lot of time to process it. That doesn’t always happen, especially if you’re going on sick leave or something like that. But do your best to evaluate your situation with your supervisor, your support system, have everyone be kind of part of the conversation of how this is gonna work when you’re away, how it’s gonna work when you come back.
Be as realistic about your situation as you can be. For example, I have a preschooler as well and then now a three month old, so what needs to happen between work and home is a big conversation. So just try to do that as early as you can so you can prepare as much as possible. And secondly, would say just like assist all of the work that needs to be covered while you’re away. So some of my work I was able to schedule ahead of time, but some of it I was not able to.
So I wrote down every single thing that I take care of and that would need to be taken care of while I was gone and even created a little buffer of time just in case I went earlier or I needed to stay a little later on leave. Just assessing everything as much as you can. Do as much work ahead of time as you can to make it smooth for yourself and your coworkers.
Emily: So you’ve got plenty of lead time, but I can’t emphasize enough how quickly that time goes by. And just as a leader and just on the other side of the equation here, working with you, just time really flew by quickly. So don’t hesitate to get the earlier you get started, the better. You might think, oh, well, you know, this is a waste of time. But it’s a lot easier if you do it in little chunks too.
Emily: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
Emily: So I think we like planned it out. Right? It’s like, hey, what are we gonna do? How are we gonna do this? And you’ve done it once before.
Emily: Yeah, exactly. We kinda done it before, but this time was even more work and we kinda figure out how
Emily: to do Absolutely. Increased. Yeah. What you were doing, having all that. So anyway, I didn’t mean to interrupt.
Where were you?
Emily: Awesome. So, yeah, my last part of preparing ahead of time is along with that is just creating a document or some kind of workflow that covers all of your work. And then I created videos of every single work process that I do just so that my coworkers, people who are covering for me would have access to as much as possible. They wouldn’t really need to ask me questions while I was gone. Mhmm.
Try to get as much out there as possible. All of our biz marketing, all of our jobs are unique and so we all have our own workflows that we cover and there’s some overlap there but there’s also some stuff that know more about Facebook than the rest of the team. So I really needed to go up to what would they know and really dig deep as much as I could to help you guys. So, yeah, creating a document or something like that is I think was very helpful.
Emily: I the other thing was we sat down as a team Mhmm. With you leading and just went through the documentation and just out who was gonna be responsible for what.
Emily: Mhmm.
Emily: And we actually put a name beside each item, and then we actually use a ticketing system here, Zendesk, for tracking tasks and helping our customers. And our project manager, Anne, actually had created some tasks, and I think maybe you did too in Zendesk. So some of them were assigned to me, for example, so it was really nice because it just showed up in Zendesk and I just said, oh yep, gotta do that on this day. So I think that was a key element as well was actually sitting down with the team, even some not even all the team members needed to be there. Mhmm.
But I think what’s helpful because then they would understand who was responsible for what. Exactly. Right? Yeah. I mean, there’s a few hiccups here and there.
It’s not perfect, but we definitely got it done. So that was great, great tips there for prepping. Then now it’s time to have a baby. You’re away. What tips do you have for us for being away, whether it’s sabbatical or it could be a sick leave or something What like would you recommend?
Emily: Yeah. So obviously try to enjoy your time off. Having a baby or being on sick leave is not a vacation, but just try to enjoy your time off as much as you can. It goes by very quickly. So just do your best to try to enjoy it, soak it up.
I know that’s easier said than done. But, yeah, I just think it’s kind of once in a lifetime chance that you have to be at home with your baby or whatever you’re doing and just try to soak it up.
Emily: So be present.
Emily: Yes.
Emily: Right?
Emily: Be present.
Emily: Don’t be thinking about work.
Emily: Exactly. Turn off your notifications for work. You don’t need to have those on. This goes actually into one of my other tips is to keep your boundaries. So if you have told your coworkers that you will be completely out of pocket, stick to that.
I communicated that for the first month, I was completely out and I would not be up for any communication about work whatsoever. I turned off all of my Zendesk notifications, our notifications for our, like, telegram, all that. I didn’t check my email. And I basically communicated, hey, if there’s an emergency after that first month, you can text me and I will do my best. But team really respected my boundaries and I was able to enjoy time with my baby and not worry about work.
And that was really, that was helpful for me because I’m someone who’s very tempted to just check my email at all times of the day or be available and it was really healthy for me to set that boundary. And luckily I work with a team who’s very respectful of that.
Emily: I think we use our internal chatting, which is very helpful. I love it.
Emily: Oh yeah.
Emily: But it’s also so tempting to blip off a note to somebody and not understand that you’re really distracting the heck out of them.
Emily: Right.
Emily: If I didn’t delete you from my telegram contacts while you were gone, You’re still on my favorites.
Emily: Still on the list.
Emily: But I didn’t. And what was nice was when we did have a couple emergency questions after that first month, you were just like, you just got back to us right away. Sure.
Emily: It was
Emily: kind of last resort Mhmm. When we reached you.
Emily: Definitely. Yeah. And that’s part of hopefully setting the team up before you go that hopefully there will not be questions. But sometimes you just can’t anticipate everything that’ll have come up. So it happens.
Right. But yeah. And my last one for before is Yeah. Or just while you’re on your way is just as work approaches, assess what you need to be successful. So this could include tying to your supervisor about your situation.
I think Pete was already in on my situation, so we didn’t need to have that conversation as much. But discuss with your partner. Like, for example, we have discussed who will wake up with our oldest and who will wake with the baby. I wake up with our preschooler and do some work at like 06:30, seven in the morning and my husband then gets up and takes him to school and then I take care of the baby for a little bit. So we just kinda switch off.
Obviously, that’s not everyone’s situation, but whatever you need to do to make sure that you’re gonna be successful from that first day, have those conversations while you’re away.
Emily: That’s great. Now you’re coming back to your, what are your keys to success as you’re coming back to work?
Emily: Yeah. So one of the tips I heard from other people was to come back midweek, especially if you’re going into the office, you’re gonna be bringing your baby to daycare, go back on, like, Wednesday or Thursday. So it’s not as overwhelming as you’re trying to adjust and you’re not just, like, immediately away from your baby five days a week. You’re take a slow approach, come back midweek. Don’t take on a bunch of meetings in your first week if possible.
Just use that first week to kinda touch up on what you miss, catch up with your coworkers, and just kinda get adjusted at being back to work. And this can kind of help you prioritize. What do I really need to do this first week back? Where can I end my flexibility? All of that.
Just try your best that first week. It might be a little overwhelming, but just and hopefully, you can have this conversation with your coworkers of being understanding that, hey, that first week, I might not be, like, immediately ready to hit the ground running on Monday, but I’m doing my best to try to readjust.
Emily: That’s that’s good. So the other thing that the other thing that we had talked about was you had some tasks that you had assigned to others and was there an opportunity to kind of leave some of those tasks assigned to others as well? And I think that’s still a bit of a work in progress, but that’s something that we wanted to do is use this as an opportunity to evaluate what you’re doing.
Emily: Exactly. Yeah. Oh, yeah. And that that’s been good. Shout out to the team.
They’ve been huge in helping me readjust, huge in taking care of everything while I was gone. Special shout out to Marcel. He’s really taken on an extra lot when I was gone. But just yeah. It’s kind of reassessing work is great.
It’s kind of a great time to reassess. Hey. I’ve been doing this thing. Yeah. Some of the work I’ve been doing, I’ve been doing for seven years.
So it’s like, alright. Well, what can we do? This is a great time to like kind of set.
Emily: Exactly. And that’s kind of work in progress. So it looks like you’ve maybe got one last little tip here for us before we sign off.
Emily: Yeah. Yeah. So just set boundaries, but be flexible. So I know that kind of sounds like it might not go together, but it does. Your work might not happen in typical work hours.
Like, again, I’m working at 06:30 in the morning. Sometimes I’m working after bedtime, which I have been realistic about, like, my reality. I am totally okay with that. But I’ve set the boundary that I don’t work on Fridays. So I’m okay with after bedtime multiple days a week knowing that Friday’s like, yeah, maybe I’ll respond to your telegram.
I’ll respond to a ticket here and there, but, like, Fridays overall are not a workday for me. So that’s been kind of Boundary. So just, again, this is kind of messing with yourself and your supervisor, but what is what are your boundaries and how can you be flexible as you go into this new situation?
Emily: Got it. Well, I thank you so much for sharing today. I can just, I can say just from my perspective that it’s been a success a leader in the organization. Holes did not get dropped. Things got done.
And it’s just really great to have you back and ready for more. Ready for what’s next.
Emily: Absolutely. Awesome. Thanks, Pete. Thanks for having me.
Peter: Thanks for listening to this episode of Biz and Life Done Well with Peter Wilson. You can subscribe to us on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and most of the other popular podcast platforms. Please tell your friends about us and leave us a review so even more people will find out about us. Thanks again. We’ll see you soon.
