To mark Equality, Diversity and Human Rights Week, we wanted to share this short but excellent example of how we can help and support our colleagues when they need it.
Carly Gray is DHU Healthcare’s Company Secretary, she told us about the compassionate and thoughtful way the organisation helped her come back to work from Maternity Leave. As anybody who has started a family will know, it is not all cute smiles and first words…parenthood can be incredibly tiring, stressful and create great difficulties maintaining a good work-life balance.
Here is Carly’s story…
“I received some exceptional support from DHU around nine years ago (that was me at the time, at the far right of the group pic above) when I was planning to return to work after maternity leave. Not all babies are the same, their sleep patterns, teething and feeding can change quickly so DHU helped me to work flexibly, often at ridiculous hours of the morning, to help me fit my work around my responsibilities as a Mother.
“I know not all of our DHU colleagues are able to work flexibly but my circumstances were such that a solution could be found so it is always worth speaking to your Line Manager to see how a particular challenge in your life can be overcome.
“For me, like many parents who have a baby or toddler, I struggled with sleep and was often woken in the night for feeding, teething, crying or night terrors. After I settled the baby back to sleep, I was alert and couldn’t get back to sleep so found myself wide-awake for at least a couple of hours, leaving me exhausted for when I had to be in the office at 9am for a full shift.
“DHU and my colleagues came up with a solution. If I didn’t have early meetings that morning, I was able to work in those early hours and then start the rest of my shift in the office a little later, my partner works out of hours so was able to take over, giving me the peace of mind to catch up on my sleep. That meant I could be ready to carry on my work later in the morning and still complete a full shift that day, albeit a split one.
“For me, this was invaluable for my mental health. Sleep deprivation is no joke, especially if it is a constant, so being able to work this way helped me to stay fully engaged with the business, complete all of my tasks and regain that work-life balance.
"As it worked so well, I’ve been able to continue to work the odd split shift to fit in things like parent’s evening, school plays, kids’ doctor appointments, things that can be difficult to fit in. If it clashes with important work commitments then it’s not possible but where I’m able, the flexibility is there.
“I appreciate that not all businesses or roles are this flexible but for me, this was a key reason to stay at DHU. If you have something that is affecting your work-life balance and impacting on your work, my advice would be to talk to your Line Manager. They will be more than happy to talk through the options and look at how you may be able to change your hours, your shifts or make reasonable adjustments to enable you to carry on working in a different way.”