Taking quality time for holidays without the guilt and pressure
As a working mother with a husband who is in the army and away a lot, I harbour mixed feelings about the summer holidays. Six to eight weeks of sun, spending time with our children, taking time out and spending quality time together?! After extended lockdowns during the pandemic, I realised how much I love spending time with my children. I realised how awesome they are and how we only have a maximum of 18 summer school holidays to enjoy. However, as the long stretch of summer holidays looms the sense of dread, mum guilt and pressure of feeling that I need to fit in both spending quality time with them whilst still giving my all to my work start to arrive.
Flexibility and support
However, I know I am one of the lucky ones. Although I have to organise everything with military precision, with flexible working (and 3 sets of grandparents to call on!) I take one day at a time and do my best. Hopefully achieving a balance of keeping on top of all my work whilst ensuring the kids are entertained (not just by the digital babysitter) and happy.
Working for a company that understands that the key thing is results and not how many hours you sit at a desk is everything. There is empowerment in feeling like you are grown up enough to manage your own time to fit things around the summer holiday “activities”.
Having worked around 60 hours a week previously in a corporate environment I cannot imagine how I would achieve that as I do now. In my current role, I work on average 25-30 hours and I am still ticking all my career progression boxes, hitting my targets and enjoying my job whilst having enough time to be with my children during holiday times.
How do you cope with stress, guilt and pressure of fitting it all in?
How do you cope during the summer holidays? Does the stress of trying to fit everything take its toll? Do you spend all of your salary on holiday camps, clubs and activities? Do you swing between being Super Parent and feeling like you are failing miserably? We have some great tips on working from home with kids.
Could there be an alternative? A company there that gives you more flexibility around holidays and trying to fit everything in? A company able to offer you a better work-life balance, different career opportunities, increased financial reward? Perhaps even a company in a different country?
We are working with a real range of companies and firms in both Australia and New Zealand offering new challenges, different perspectives and “soft” benefits, most of which will wait for the right candidate. As the European summer passes we see an increasing number of returning citizens and international candidates prepare to make the move to the Southern Hemisphere ready for their summer. Why don’t you “beat the rush” and get in touch to see which could work for you.
The right job can change your life
I have been in the recruitment game for over 20 years and I still believe that the right job can change someone’s life, as cheesy as that may sound, I see it happen on a daily basis. At Tyler Wren we provide tailored job searches to candidates, which means that we understand your skills, experience and requirements for your next role. We then confidentially approach the market with your details to carefully network you a shortlist of opportunities/firms that match your requirements to consider.
We have built relationships with law firms that trust us to work with them and present them with quality and experienced candidates we know will fit into their firms. They then talk to us about whether roles they are considering could flex in terms of experience they could work with, what opportunities they may have coming up or specific work becoming available. Those opportunities that are not even in the marketplace yet.
If this piques your interest drop me a line if you want to talk further. I have the time.