Have you ever taken time out from your career, be it a break or to have a child or due to illness and wondered how you would ever return to work? Well I have just taken a 6 month break from a very busy and successful career in HR and it has given me the time to think about what is important to me in my career and what I want my career to look like going forward.
I have decided not to return to a large organisation but to consult back to organisations instead to give me more flexibility and allowing me to offer different HR solutions. This is a decision to do something that is completely different to what I have done before so it is daunting but at the same time it is exciting. I contemplated setting up my own agency but in talking to others I realised I still wanted to collaborate with other like-minded HR professionals and to offer a more diverse background to clients.
So, I have decided to join A Human Agency – A-HA who are finding new ways to design HR differently in their consulting, SME advisory, people analytics, and learning lab businesses.
I have only just started this adventure and already experienced all the common fears of coming back to work after time away. What has happened since I took a break? Am I still up to date? Can I still do my job effectively?
I am sure these are questions that many of you who have taken a break have asked yourself and it is a lonely feeling when you first emerge back to your professional world.
Having now done that I have a few tips for returning to work after a break.
- Firstly, don’t be scared, you deserve to be in a job as much as the next person.
- Don’t apologise for your break, describe what you have done in the past, what you did while on your break and what you want to do now.
- Reconnect with your professional self by talking to former colleagues and preparing to network with new contacts.
- Attend training sessions on technology or areas that are relevant to your field to build your skills, refresh your thinking and to remind you of what you do know.
- Finally seek support from a return to work coach for some tips on how to manage your situation.
If you want to discuss your return to work challenges or return to work coaching for your organisation or just want to find out more about A Human Agency and how we can help, then please get in contact with me for an informal chat.