Comeback Coach

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Hello Bright MInds, in this episode you're going to hear from Georgie Siddall, an operational risk manager who took voluntary redundancy in 2019 when she recognised she was burnt out trying to keep the show on the road at work and at home with three sons under 10. 

One of her sons is on the autistic spectrum and with no family around to help share the load, life was really challenging for her and her husband. She made her career comeback in July 2021 when she landed a job at Santander, one of three organisations she had on her “want to work for” target list. Alongside her day job she also co-Chairs Santander’s Enable network because she wants to make a difference to colleagues who have different needs.

Georgie and I met on LinkedIn on GCSE results day 2022 when I posted about my son, being permanently excluded from school for persistent disruptive behaviour four months ahead of his exams. He has ADHD and ASD and my golly it’s been quite a ride and in the end he smashed his GCSEs which was just brilliant and he’s now got his sights set on a Russell Group University to study economics and finance.…I am so proud! 

Anyway, back to Georgie. It’s a beautiful story of really coming through after a very difficult time and finding a job you love. You’re going to hear about:

•  the signs of burnout
• how Georgie came to the decision to take voluntary redundancy
• how she got herself ready to return to work
• how to ask for compressed hours and make it work
• the joy and meaning that can come from doing ‘off the side of your desk’ work – and how to make that work when you’re already working really hard in your day job
• what makes Santander a great employer

If you're reading this before Tuesday 26th September 2023 you're in time to come to our live Q&A with Dr Mandy Lehto on HOW TO SPOT THE SIGNS OF BURNOUT & TAME YOUR OVERACHIEVER GREMLIN.

MORE FOR YOU

• DM Jessica on instagram @comebackcommuk
• Get Jessica's FREE fortnightly note, Pivotal.
• Watch our coaching Success Stories. 
• Take our new FREE Career Fuel diagnostic - and get a personalised free report.
• Read Mothers Work! How to Get a Grip on Guilt and Make a Smooth Return to Work by Jessica Chivers.
• Contact us about executive coaching.

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Hello Bright Minds, my guest today is Jess Heagren, founder of That Works For Me – a platform that connects employers with people seeking flexible work - and author of the Careers After Babies report. Jess previously held strategically important roles at Direct Line Insurance, NIG and RBS Insurance. She’s wonderfully honest and generous and I was so happy to have this chat with Jess where among other things we talked about:

• Coming back to work too soon
• Preparing for a good return
• The joy of spreadsheets
• Career progression and
• Identifying a family-friendly business culture

If you’ve been listening a while you’ll know that this podcast is part of the Comeback Community™ employee experience. This is a solution we deliver for progressive employers to keep their people feeling confident, connected and cared for when they take extended leave from work – be it sick leave, maternity leave, shared parental, adoption, bereavement or sabbatical.

If you think the experience of people returning to work after a break could be better where you work, please come over to comebackcommunity.co.uk/introduce. There you’ll find a quick and easy way for you to tell us who in your HR team we should be in touch with.

MORE FOR YOU

• DM Jessica on instagram @comebackcommuk
• Get Jessica's FREE fortnightly note, Pivotal.
• Watch our coaching Success Stories. 
• Take our new FREE Career Fuel diagnostic - and get a personalised free report.
• Read Mothers Work! How to Get a Grip on Guilt and Make a Smooth Return to Work by Jessica Chivers.
• Contact us about executive coaching.

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Well hello, it’s good to be back. I wonder how you are? Our season four finale was all about how to make full time work work when you have a young family and today we’re turn our attention to career progression, ambition and in particular the role of sponsorship in elevating women’s careers.

Although COMEBACK COACH is a podcast for people returning to work from any type of extended leave, the majority of you wonderful Bright Minds are female - and most of you are coming back from maternity leave. Plenty of you have you sights set on taking your career further when you return from leave which is why I think you’re going to love hearing from Kathryn McCulloch, who’s four months back from her second maternity leave and on Denton’s first Global Women’s Sponsorship Programme.

Kathryn is a partner in Dentons’ Dispute Resolution group, whose key areas of practice and expertise include aviation, drone (RPAS) regulation, wills, trusts and estates, and corporate/commercial disputes. With a strategic focus on reaching early resolution to claims, Kathryn looks to achieve timely resolution of disputes through alternative dispute resolution tools, including formal and informal mediation. She’s both a fixed wing and a drone pilot, and a proud mama to two young boys.

Also in this episode we’ve got Romana Bruderer-Schwab, who’s Denton’s Global Inclusion, Diversity & Equity manager and supports the ID&E agenda in more than 80 countries. Romana was born in the U.S., is based in Edinburgh and describes herself as a global citizen who has a penchant for learning, amassing new experiences and growing as a person and a professional. She is passionate about tilting the scales of equity and justice in favour of the underrepresented. 

In this conversation you’re going to hear about:

• The difference between sponsorship and mentoring.
• Why sponsorship programmes are needed for women in the law.
• How self-doubt can affect the most accomplished people when they take a break from work.
• How a Type A personality prepares for maternity leave.
• Kathryn’s wobbliest moment when she came back from maternity leave and her advice to people coming back from extended leave.

COMEBACK COACH is part of the Comeback Community™ employee experience designed to keep employees feeling confident, connected and cared for when they take extended leave from work – be it sick leave, maternity leave, shared parental, adoption, bereavement or sabbatical.

If you think the experience of people returning to work after a break could be better where you work, please come over to comebackcommunity.co.uk/introduce. There you’ll find a quick and easy way for you to tell us who in your HR team we should be in touch with.

***

MORE FOR YOU

• DM Jessica on instagram @comebackcommuk
• Get Jessica's FREE fortnightly note, Pivotal.
• Watch our coaching Success Stories. 
• Take our new FREE Career Fuel diagnostic - and get a personalised free report.
• Read Mothers Work! How to Get a Grip on Guilt and Make a Smooth Return to Work by Jessica Chivers.
• Contact us about executive coaching.

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Hello Bright Minds, this is a special season finale involving six guests who are making full time work work with  young children. I wanted to do this episode after I read a statistic that didn’t shock me as much as sadden me in a report published earlier this year called “CAREERS AFTER BABIES”. 848 women took part in the research which found 85% of women leave the full-time workforce within three years of having children.

Upfront disclaimer, all voices in this episode are women who are in a partnership with the father of their children. The guests are drawn from our Instagram community where I put up a poll one Saturday morning in February asking whether they worked FT or PT. I was surprised that the majority in our community answered that they work full time and then thought…haha, let’s do a podcast about working full time and ask these mamas to be part of it. I didn’t hear from anyone who is solo parenting and working full time and so we’ve got the voices who volunteered to chat to me.

When I reflect on the DM’s people sent me on instagram and the voices of the women you’re about to hear, there appear to be four key factors that enable women to continue to work FT when they become parents. 

1. Mindset and attitude of the individual: wanting to work full time and enjoying your work.
2. Your employer having a positive and supportive attitude towards of compressed hours.
3. Your employer having a positive and supportive attitude to working from home.
4.  And number four relates to a woman’s partner: having a partner who is positive about you working FT and is committed to sharing the load equally at home

In this episode you’re going to hear those factors brought to life. 

My guests are:

• Carina Hoskisson, Engineer at Caterillar.
• Caoimhe Burins, Audit Manager at Dell.
• Rebecca Knight, an Executive Assistant in financial services.
• Kirsty Trude, HR business partner in an international charity.
• Chrissy, who works in the NHS.
• "Anna" who works in the police.

MORE FOR YOU

• DM Jessica on instagram @comebackcommuk
• Get Jessica's FREE fortnightly note, Pivotal.
• Watch our coaching Success Stories. 
• Take our new FREE Career Fuel diagnostic - and get a personalised free report.
• Read Mothers Work! How to Get a Grip on Guilt and Make a Smooth Return to Work by Jessica Chivers.
• Contact us about executive coaching.

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Hello Bright Mind and welcome to episode 61. Today my guest coachee is Natalie Trice, a PR consultant and trainer and the author of three books. She’s also an ICF-accredited career coach for PR and comms professionals.

She’s worked in PR for 25 years and put everyone and everything in the media spotlight. From Epson printers, Discovery Channel documentaries, and Betty Crocker cakes to Animal Planet celebrities, vegan bags and coastal holidays.

Today she specialises in PR mentoring and training for brands and experts so they can get themselves in the media, and a lot of this work is based on her second book, PR School.

She lives by the sea in Devon (which she’s also written a book about) with her husband, two teenage sons and their two dogs, Coco and Dotty.

Our coaching conversation is about Natalie’s changing identity as she moves away from being a “hospital mum” – and you’ll hear what that means – and towards an empty nest and re-finding her focus on a love of learning and teaching. It’s a conversation about knowing what your big career dream is and what it will take for Natalie to get there.   

As you’re listening, if you’ve got a question or want to tell me about your return to work please find me on Instagram @comebackcommuk because I really do love hearing from you.

And did you know, this podcast forms part of our Comeback Community employee experience designed to keep you feeling confident, connected and cared for when you take extended leave from work? If you think your organisation needs to improve the way it cares for people taking any kind of extended leave I’d be really grateful if you’d tell your Head of HR or Chief People Officer about this podcast and send them a link to comebackcommunity.co.uk.

MORE FOR YOU

• DM Jessica on instagram @comebackcommuk
• Get Jessica's FREE fortnightly note, Pivotal.
• Watch our coaching Success Stories. 
• Take our new FREE Career Fuel diagnostic - and get a personalised free report.
• Read Mothers Work! How to Get a Grip on Guilt and Make a Smooth Return to Work by Jessica Chivers.
• Contact us about executive coaching.

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Hello, Bright Minds and welcome to episode 60 with Sophie Giddings and Sam Crossley who are the job-sharing Marketing Directors at the gorgeous pet care brand Lily’s Kitchen who we’re proud to count among our clients. 

I coached Sophie when she returned from maternity leave and as you’ll hear, returning to work as part of a job-share wasn’t plain sailing but they have very definitely got there.

In this episode we talk about 

• Being the first job-share at Lily’s Kitchen
• The benefits to businesses and individuals of job-sharing
• Challenges Sophie & Sam encountered and how they’ve evolved how they work together
• Educating the business about how to work with them
• The best way to handover to your job-share partner

MORE FOR YOU

• DM Jessica on instagram @comebackcommuk
• Get Jessica's FREE fortnightly note, Pivotal.
• Watch our coaching Success Stories. 
• Take our new FREE Career Fuel diagnostic - and get a personalised free report.
• Read Mothers Work! How to Get a Grip on Guilt and Make a Smooth Return to Work by Jessica Chivers.
• Contact us about executive coaching.

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Hello Bright Minds, my guest today is Elena Gorman, a UX designer at an experience transformation studio in the north of England. She’s a mother two of two, married to Tim and has two naughty cats, Bella and Isaac, and lives in Gateshead.  

Elena experienced PND after her first child and again after her second. Whilst working as a project manager she stumbled across UX design and fell in love with it and it’s totally changed her career and where she sees it going. She also has PhD in theology and wanted to be a costume designer but never followed it up. 

In this episode we cover: 

• knowing what your career needs are
• being prepared to take a risk
• how to make a career change
• how to expand your professional network
• making yourself visible to the people who might have the job you really want
• planning how you’ll cope with post-natal depression with your second child after having severe PND first time around
• and how brilliant professor Sue Black is

A book Elena read that helped her through her PND is What Am I Thinking: Having a Baby After Postpartum Depression by Karen Kleiman

She also found “Squiggly Careers” very helpful for her career change by Sarah Ellis and Helen Tupper – and when we’d finished recording she said she was taking some time this afternoon to go and read “She’s in Ctrl” by Anne-Marie Imafidon. This reminded me of the advice Emmie Faust gave in episode 52 about coming back from burnout and how she was learning to stop doing, doing, doing and to be able to take time to sit and read.

I also wanted to mention the work of an organisation I first read about in The Times over a decade ago called careershifters – their website is a go-to destination for people who want to make a career change and a member of our coaching team, Shiobhaun, does some work with them so I can whole-heartedly say what they’re doing is good quality. 

Finally, Elena talked about the environment Professor Sue Black has created at the University of Durham, and that’s uncommon practice. 

MORE FOR YOU

• DM Jessica on instagram @comebackcommuk
• Get Jessica's FREE fortnightly note, Pivotal.
• Watch our coaching Success Stories. 
• Take our new FREE Career Fuel diagnostic - and get a personalised free report.
• Read Mothers Work! How to Get a Grip on Guilt and Make a Smooth Return to Work by Jessica Chivers.
• Contact us about executive coaching.

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Hello Bright Minds, my guests today are Times journalist, Paul Morgan-Bentley and his husband Robin. Paul is the author of a brand new book, The Equal Parent, which explores the falsehoods behind parenting roles. Paul and Robin both went through their own work comebacks after taking many months of Shared Parental Leave after having their son Solley through surrogacy.  

We talk about:

•  their surrogacy journey
• how they each prepared to return to work
• how they share the load at home
• the uncommon practice things they do to that enables them to have gratifying careers and a happy home life. 

If you like what Paul’s got to say and you’d like to hear more insights from his book, The Equal Parent, I’m doing a live Q&A with him on Tuesday 28th March 8-8.45pm GMT. Complimentary tickets here.

MORE FOR YOU

• DM Jessica on instagram @comebackcommuk
• Get Jessica's FREE fortnightly note, Pivotal.
• Watch our coaching Success Stories. 
• Take our new FREE Career Fuel diagnostic - and get a personalised free report.
• Read Mothers Work! How to Get a Grip on Guilt and Make a Smooth Return to Work by Jessica Chivers.
• Contact us about executive coaching.

Ask me a Q

Hello Bright Minds, my guest today is Emily who has over 12 years Account Management experience. She’s worked in two of the big London Advertising agencies and her most recent role was at a CRM agency as an Account Director.

She’s married to Tom, they have two daughters, Mollie who is 3 and, Mila who is nearly 1 and after nearly 4 years away from her career she’s fired up to make her comeback.

In this conversation I help Emily get into the right mindset for finding the role she wants and how to reach out to the brands she’d like to work for.

Did you know, this podcast forms part of our Comeback Community employee experience designed to keep you feeling confident, connected and cared for when you take extended leave from work? If you think your organisation needs to improve the way it cares for people taking any kind of extended leave I’d be really grateful if you’d tell your Head of HR or Chief People Officer about this podcast and send them a link to comebackcommunity.co.uk.

MORE FOR YOU

• DM Jessica on instagram @comebackcommuk
• Get Jessica's FREE fortnightly note, Pivotal.
• Watch our coaching Success Stories. 
• Take our new FREE Career Fuel diagnostic - and get a personalised free report.
• Read Mothers Work! How to Get a Grip on Guilt and Make a Smooth Return to Work by Jessica Chivers.
• Contact us about executive coaching.

Ask me a Q

Hello Bright Minds, my guest today is Selina Tyler,  Head of UK Wholesale at Lombard Odier Investment Management. She’s a past coachee of mine who I wanted to get on the podcast because of her experience of interviewing whilst visibly pregnant and starting a new role in a new organisation after maternity leave.

Selina has 18 years of investment management experience and joined the business from Mirabaud Asset Management. She’s also held other senior roles at Hermes Investment Management and Man Group.

Her role is focussed on driving the growth of LOIM’s UK wholesale franchise and strengthening the firm’s distribution proposition for intermediaries including private banks, financial advisers and wealth managers. She also oversees a team of four, seeking to promote the firm’s thematic and sustainability propositions to clients across the UK wholesale network. 

Alongside her investment responsibilities, Selina is also a member of the advisory board for CityHive, an independent organisation which aims to foster diversity, inclusion and sustainability across the investment management landscape.  

MORE FOR YOU

• DM Jessica on instagram @comebackcommuk
• Get Jessica's FREE fortnightly note, Pivotal.
• Watch our coaching Success Stories. 
• Take our new FREE Career Fuel diagnostic - and get a personalised free report.
• Read Mothers Work! How to Get a Grip on Guilt and Make a Smooth Return to Work by Jessica Chivers.
• Contact us about executive coaching.