Protecting Your Long-Term Career If You Left The Workforce Because of COVID

Did you leave the workforce this past year because of COVID? If so, you are not alone! Whether due to the demands of juggling e-learning and work, increased family stressors, concerns about health and safety, or other reasons, many moms made the same difficult decision to step away from work and focus solely on family. These are all valid reasons, and you should not feel an ounce of guilt over it. But now you may be wondering what to do when you want to return to work with a gap in your work history.

Whether it’s this year or years down the road, if you left the workforce because of COVID, there are steps you can take to ensure a smooth transition back to work when the time is right.

Steps To Take To Make the Return To Work Easier

Protect your long-term career while you’re away from the workforce by keeping the following tips in mind:

1. Stay professionally active. Keep up with professional groups, engage in relevant conversations, and volunteer whenever possible to stay current. Even if they’ve stopped meeting in person, many groups are still active online and as a bonus this is remote work so you will have remote work experience to add to your resume even if it is unpaid. 

2. Continue to network. Be prepared when you do decide to return to work by keeping connections warm. Reach out to key people, participate in online organizations, and build relationships in your industry. Connect with your former coworkers on LinkedIn now while the relationships are still fresh or send an email every so often to say hello goes a long way! Even if they also left the workforce. Follow industry thought leaders on LinkedIn to stay informed about industry trends. 

3. Be proactive in your self-marketing. Keep your LinkedIn and resume up-to-date now so it’s easier to pick up when you’re ready to return to the workforce. It will be easier to get all of those metrics to put on your resume now vs. a year or two down the road.

4. Use the Return to Work Checklist! Subscribe the Parents Pivot newsletter to receive a free download of the Ultimate Return to Work Checklist so you’ll know exactly what to do when you decide it’s time to pivot back to work.

How To Know When It’s Time To Return

One of the most difficult aspects of returning to work after an extended career pause, for any reason, is knowing when it’s time. Returning to the workforce after leaving because of COVID is no different. How will you know when the time is right?

First of all, making the decision to return to work is a personal one. People return to paid work for a variety of reasons. The most common ones that I hear are financial security and to do meaningful work but others include professional achievement goals, being a role model for your children, and wanting to do something different when the nest empties. 

Having conversations with your partner/s in parenting will help you think and talk through financial goals, household responsibility expectations, and role changes. Ask them to weigh in, listen to their responses, and work together to come to a decision that benefits the family as a whole. 

Only you (and your family) can determine what’s best for you. 

Whenever you decide the time is right, Parents Pivot is here for you! Schedule a phone call with Anna for a consultation to determine if 1:1 or group coaching is right for you!

5 Ways To Prepare For Returning To Work After A Career Pause (and Post Coronavirus Pandemic)

Are you interested in returning to work sometime in the next year or so? Or maybe you are thinking that this will be your last year at home with the family before you return to work next year?  Whether you’ve taken a career pause because of the coronavirus pandemic or other family reasons – believe it or not, now is the perfect time to start preparing to return to work, even if it’s not in the next few months. It takes 8 months in normal, non-pandemic times for a continuously working person to find a job. That process takes even longer for people with a career pause on their resume. The good news is that there are things you can do now to make the process stress-free and successful! 

Subscribe the Parents Pivot newsletter and you’ll receive a free download of the Ultimate Return to Work Checklist to keep you organized and moving forward during your pivot. 

5 Things You Need To Do To Prepare To Return To Work

Preparing to return to work after a career pause or after the coronavirus pandemic doesn’t have to be overwhelming. Focus on these five tips and you’ll be making great progress towards landing a position you’ll love.

1. Maintain your network. Whether you like it or not, sometimes landing your dream job comes down to who you know. Getting your foot in the door through a connection often has a higher success rate than applying for a position without knowing anyone in the company.

2. Reflect. Take time to think about what you have enjoyed doing in past work, explore your values, and come up with your ideal vision for your next step. What do you really want to do in your next job? Having a clear focus on where you’ve been and where you want to go is a key to a successful career.

3. Pursue professional skills. You don’t have to be doing paid work to sharpen your skills! Volunteer with a local organization or take some courses online. Doing this now will add skills and experience to your resume that helps to fill the gap you have from taking a career pause. Coursera and General Assembly are great resources to enhance your skills from home.

4. Update your resume and LinkedIn. Yes, it’s not fun, but you have to do it. Working on your resume and LinkedIn in small chunks as you have time will be less daunting than trying to do it when you see a job opening that you want to apply for. If you have recently left a job during the COVID pandemic, now is the perfect time to update your resume for your most recent position. Contacting past employers for measurable results of your work while the work is still relatively fresh is also a good idea if your pause hasn’t been too long.

5. Be patient. This process can take awhile, even when you are doing everything right. Find your tribe to support you through the long haul! Understanding your “why” of returning to work can also help you get through the process. Learn how to find your “why”.

THRIVE is the perfect way to implement these five ways to prepare to return to work into your transition.

A Solution For Returning to Work After Career Pause: THRIVE

THRIVE is a supportive community of like minded returners going through the same thing that you are, returning to work after a career pause. THRIVE enables you to maintain a solid network, helps you to organize your thoughts about your career path, and helps you to update your job search resources - all while leaning on other women taking the same path.

Join us for this 3 month return to work program! Let THRIVE be the catalyst for you to move towards what’s next.

Join THRIVE today!

Getting Back To Normal: How To Prepare Your Family For After COVID-19

Transitioning quickly to an unexpected, and brand new routine has been a struggle for parents everywhere during the COVID-19 crisis. Schools have shut down. Social engagements have been canceled. Our children have transitioned to a new and uncharted territory: distance learning. For weeks now, you’ve been perfecting your new world order, but this won’t last forever.  Eventually, you’ll need to transition back to the old normal – but even then it might not be exactly as it was before. 

When that happens, you will thank yourself if you’re prepared for transitioning your kids and the adults in your home. Having a few tools in your toolbox for this transition will make things go more smoothly. No one knows how this transition will happen exactly, and it will be different for every family. Having a basic plan for how you’ll lead your family through a big transition – yet again – will set everyone up for success. 

Preparing Your Family For a Big Transition

As you think ahead to the transition back to normal life post-coronavirus, prepare yourself that it’s going to be another new process to figure out. Learning new things can be tiring, so make sure you build in some time to breathe and take care of yourself.

As we get closer to that time, consider these strategies for preparing the family for the big transition:

Create a transition plan. Spend some of this stay-at-home time putting together a transition plan for the big return to your former routine. It may be wise to consider creating contingency plans for the various ways the quarantine could be lifted in your area, too. Things may lift incrementally and not suddenly. This is a good thing since it’ll help you adapt to the transition that is happening. 

Create a plan for how to return to social events: Will you host an event? What types of social gatherings will be a priority for your family? Make a plan for how your professional life will look once things get back to normal: Will you need to find a way to make up for wages lost? Will you need to find a new position? What kind of position might that be? Don’t be afraid to make multiple plans for the various scenarios under which this big transition affects your family.

Hold onto some of the new things you love to do. Many families have found some things during this shelter-in-place order that they’ve enjoyed. If your family has enjoyed dinner at the table together, basketball in the driveway, or movie nights, find a way to implement this into your regular routine once you’re not stuck at home. Make it a mandatory staple for your family and hold onto the routine. Talk to your family members about what they’ve enjoyed doing together or what they’ve enjoyed about this time at home and come to a consensus about what activities should still be part of the family routine after the big transition out of quarantine. 

Ease back into activities. Don’t overdo it. Even if restrictions are lifted somewhat suddenly, it’d be a good idea to ease back into activities slowly. As you can probably attest to, a sudden and unexpected transition can wreak havoc on moods, energy levels, sleep patterns, and stress levels. Make expectations of your family reasonable; don’t expect your children to jump right back into their old life in a snap. Start out slow, adding in a social event or two each week and see how everyone handles it. Do something everyone enjoys as a family that is outside the home – maybe take in a movie or visit the pool. No doubt, everyone will be excited to do things they weren’t able to do for so long so take it easy and prioritize what you’ll do together first.

Intentionally practice open communication. Talk with the whole family about what’s working, not working, or stressful. As you ease back into the world again, be sure to maintain open communication with everyone in the family about how they’re feeling, if they’re stressed, and how overwhelmed they feel. It can be easy for kids and adults to be so excited about the freedoms returning in life that they become overwhelmed and have emotions they don’t expect to have to manage. Work through these with them; If you need help, check out this resource for managing difficult conversations.

Big transitions for families aren’t reserved for world-wide pandemics. They happen all the time. Take some time to plan and be intentional about how you and your family handles these transitions and you’ll be better prepared for future transitions. This skill can also be incredibly valuable in the workplace! 

If you’re finding yourself needing some help with these big transitions, feel free to reach out to Parents Pivot. We’ll be glad to help you with a coaching call.

Workplace Transferable Skill: Organization for Moms

How is your work/life balance during the quarantine? 

While you’ve been home these last few weeks, you’ve likely found yourself unexpectedly juggling things you hadn’t previously. Trust me: You are not alone! It can be difficult to figure out organization for moms that works for our busy routines. Since schools, social engagements, and pretty much every other event have been closed, your life has changed massively. For many, this means working from home, children are at home instead of school, and a whole new life to manage without any of the usual activities. Throughout this process, you may have been asking for help from your family members, soliciting feedback from them, and initiating new structures throughout your home to keep the sanity. While it’s not easy, one silver lining is that the organization for moms that you are learning now is not just for moms at home - it’s transferable to the workplace!

As you’ve gotten closer to settling in to this new norm, consider some ways the organizational skills you’re sharpening are preparing you for the workplace. As a parent, you’ve been fully in charge of making changes (some that not everyone likes), improving workflow, and making transitions easier for those involved. Not everyone has the organizational skills it takes to do this. And it’s not easy. 

Well, working mom, if transitioning an entire family’s routine and schedule during a world-wide pandemic isn’t something to boast about, nothing is. Today, start thinking about your organizational skills in terms of your own workplace skills. Take advantage of this situation by honing these skills during this crazy time.

Organization for Moms

Strangely, with the new lack of activities in your world, it can feel like there are more things to organize. That seems counterintuitive, but it is true. Before, you may have had a full day of work, daycare pickup, and dinner, and evening activities. You were in a routine that was familiar. Now, with this temporary hiatus of most of your normal routine, it’s time to adjust to these changes and sharpen those organizational skills. 

Here are some organization tips to strengthen your skills while at home, so you can transfer them to the workplace later:

Time Blocking: Block off times on your digital or paper planner for specific tasks. If you don’t use a calendar or planner, now is the time to start. Even if you print off a weekly calendar to organize your to-do list, you will benefit immensely. Convert your to-do list to a calendar. If your kids need you to help with school work, block out time for each of them to get help. Consider any schedules the schools recommend and let your children know when to expect undivided attention from you. Block off time to focus on your own work or home needs. Time blocking puts you on a schedule, which will help you complete these tasks without the stress of constantly thinking about your todo list. But don’t forget to block off time for meals and fun activities, too!

Activity Batching: If you have several of the same types of activities, consider activity batching. Activity batching allows you to group similar activities together in your schedule so that you are more focused, your work is more streamlined, and you encounter less distractions. 

Michael Hyatt, an expert on activity batching, suggests that as you are more productive when you batch activities, you will spend less time on them, which frees up more time for other activities. Take a look at your own schedule and consider similar activities that you can batch together to streamline your workflow. Batch together similar cleaning activities or work activities. And use the quarantine to improve your activity batching now; in the workplace, this organizational tool will save you time and create more efficient work completion. Employers look for that in applicants.

Problem-Solving: At the end of the day, take some time to reflect on what went well and what did not. If you find something was a major problem that day – either a time suck or seemed unnecessarily taxing – spend some time identifying and solving the problem. If your children fought you every step of the way, brainstorm some ideas to find a solution that helps both you and them. If you found that it felt impossible to complete your own work, look at your schedule and see what can be done about this struggle. Consult others, do research online, and spend time on these thoughts. Solving these problems can significantly cut down on your daily stress and improve this at-home experience drastically. It’s worth the time and is a habit that, once developed, you can take with you to the workplace.

Frontload Tasks: Frontloading tasks when possible is an incredible way to invest time and energy into organization. Just like some people set their clothes out the night before or plan their meals for the week, frontloading is always an investment in the near future and your mental health. Consider some tasks you can do ahead of time. Batch them together and chunk them into your calendar. Maybe meal planning is more feasible since everyone is home right now. Get them in on the action and plan your meals for the week; you might even schedule who is going to start the meals or clean up each night. You may also save time by scheduling your bills to be paid--either automatically or just for the month or week. This saves time later, when you’d pay each individually as they come. In the workplace, frontloading skills show that you can anticipate what’s coming, plan for it, and make it less stressful.

Cutting the Fat: Now is the perfect time to cut out things that are not necessary for your family. Do you have subscriptions or memberships you’re paying for that you’re never using? Cut them out of your budget. Is your family over-committed to activities and regular events that you now realize aren’t helpful like you’d thought? Commit to skipping those when they start back up. In the workplace, cutting fat saves time, money, and energy. Take a critical look at what your family is spending time, money, and energy on and find things to cut. And when you’re interviewing or at the workplace, tap into this lean organizational skill as a reason you are a valuable resource.

Take advantage of this opportunity to sharpen your organizational skills as a mom. Take it a step further by maximizing your time management skills with these other tips on maximizing your work and home during this quarantine. Should you find yourself needing additional support, Parents Pivot is here for you! Set up a coaching call for one-on-one help!