KEY POINTS:
My friend Rosie is a salt-of-the-earth woman, a dependable, fun and unruffled wife and mother of two. But this time last year, she suffered a complete meltdown.
On the eve of returning to work after seven years staying home to raise her sons, Rosie was struck by a crisis of confidence. "I suddenly asked myself 'why am I doing this?"' she told me. "I had this fear of failing, of not remembering how to do things, of being a complete flop in front of people." Her panic was ill-founded.
Within hours of resuming her career at her old workplace, an investment administration firm, Rosie realised her computer skills were still intact and the mathematical corner of her brain had not shrivelled in maternity. By the end of her first three-day working week, she recognised she could achieve as much in those three days as she could when she worked five as a carefree, childless young woman. "I think employers get their money's worth out of us mothers - we're productive, and experienced, and we appreciate having a job," she says.
Rosie's return-to-work anxieties are emblematic of many New Zealand mothers apprehensive about resuming the careers they left behind to have children or to start new vocations. They're haunted by the fear that no matter how good they were back then, they don't know how good they are now.
Computers have leaped light years ahead, they fret; their skills may be irrelevant with new technology and techniques, they worry; what will they talk about in the lunchroom with their Generation Y workmates, they brood.
With a national skills shortage, a greater push to get more women into the workforce, and more families needing two incomes to cope financially, diffident mums need support more than ever. There is a scarcity of courses and programmes available to help smooth the path back into the workforce for qualified women who chose to take time out.
Our labour force has already seen a huge growth in women's involvement: Statistics New Zealand's Focusing on Women report revealed the country's female workforce had increased by 30 per cent in the last 30 years, to just over 70 per cent of all women aged 20-64.
In fact, Statistics New Zealand says female employment has reached its highest level yet, hitting 1.015 million in September. In the prior three months, 8000 more women had got jobs, while the number of men employed fell 5000. A major factor in the shrinking of New Zealand's unemployment rate over the past decade has been the increase in part-time work, especially by women (two and a half times more women are employed part-time than men).
With the economic screws turning tighter on Kiwi families, financial necessity is at the top of the list of reasons women are choosing to return to work. Self-fulfilment, divorce and societal pressures (especially on mums who find themselves childless in the middle of the day) are also strong motives.
In a previous life, Leanne White spent eight years sailing the seven seas. A young, nurse on her way to work in Britain, she never got there. Instead, she was enticed onboard a superyacht that would take her around the world. Back in New Zealand, White has taken the last six years off work to raise three children, while her husband continues to skipper superyachts for half the year.
Now that their youngest children, 5-year-old twins, are at school, White is ready to go back to work. The family could do with the extra money, and White, 34, needs to do something for herself. But she has had the jitters. "It's been 15 years since I was in the workforce in New Zealand and being cocooned at home with the kids has given my confidence a bit of a knock," she says.
Even the thought of heading into the city has her nervous. When she had to go into the Auckland CBD for a course, she meticulously planned her journey, took two trains on the western line and arrived an hour early. White wishes now she had done some nursing shift work over the years, so the transition from full-time mother to working mum wasn't so daunting.
"With my husband overseas two to three months at a time, it's been hard, and I haven't been able to do part-time work. But I wish I had kept my hand in somehow," she says. "I've had it in my head that I want to work, but I've also had all these excuses like, 'what happens when the kids are sick?"' That's a concern some bosses share.
Recruitment specialist Kate Ross says while job-sharing and part-time work is growing, some employers still find it a bit of a turn-off. They're looking for someone to do the work part-time, but ask "do you have a back-up if Johnny is sick?". She advises women to look for an organisation or business that has a degree of empathy. "I think the reason why you're going back to work is important too.
If you have to, you make the effort to have the support, to make it all work," she says. White has since done a week-long programme in Auckland set up by Ross and business partner Sarah Paykel to help mothers back to work, and is determined to make a success of it when she starts temping. "My husband will support me in whatever I choose to do. We've agreed that even if it means my whole wages go on childcare to start with, I've got to get my foot back in the door."
Sarah Paykel is a picture of composure. Her clothes are impeccably tailored, her smile is easy, she runs her own successful Auckland PR agency, SP & Co Communications, and a booster course for women wanting to return to work, called, you guessed it, return2work.
At home she has three daughters under the age of 6. She has the life-work balance nailed. The concept behind return2work was to help find what Paykel calls the lost workforce - the mums who leave great jobs and don't go back due to what they perceive to be the lack of options often combined with a loss of confidence and skills. This wasn't something Paykel experienced; she started her PR business when she was eight months' pregnant with her first child. But she says a number of friends had been down the road of professional self-doubt.
As head of Kinetic Recruitment, Ross sees there is work is out there for qualified women. "What we're finding is when people leave, they're not being replaced by full-timers. Employers are thinking part-time or contracting. There are jobs especially in accounting, administration, customer services, reception and part-time executive roles. There's not a lot in marketing or advertising. "It's hard having been a marketing manager then taking four years out to find queues of people who can fill that role. If you're willing to do more administrative work, you'll get a job relatively quickly."
Temping, Paykel says, can help women get their mojo back, introduce them to new roles and let them discover what they like doing. The women drawn to the return2work courses (there were three held in 2008) are aged between 25 and 55, and come from all kinds of working backgrounds - nurse, chef, flight attendant, shop assistant, customer service and self-employed. Half of them are looking to change careers, but most come to the course with little idea what they're skilled to do. The common denominator among the women is that they lack confidence, "big time", says Ross. "Some women come through almost defeated, very despondent, and desperate for support. They're unsure how to handle themselves or how to get the right tools together to remarket themselves," she says. "They think they don't have any skills, yet they are very capable women. They've been sitting at home thinking 'how am I going to fit with the new XYZ generation'."
"That's one of their greatest fears," adds Paykel. "It's very intimidating fitting in with the generation who expect everything and voice it. When we first started work, we made the cups of teas, and Generation Y walk in on their first day demanding BlackBerries and a 4.30 finish so they can go to the gym," says Ross. Yet their assets from motherhood - life experience, communication, multi-tasking, budgeting, time management and meeting deadlines - make them valuable to any employer, and Paykel believes it's a matter of bringing their past and present lives together.
Ross has found bosses impressed with the working mother's respect for time: they really perform in the seven hours that they're at work; no looking on Facebook, no long tea breaks. It's not simple for women who've been off the payroll for at least four years to walk back into their old jobs; the return2work course advises them not to realistically expect the same hierarchical position or pay packet.
Paykel suggests setting aspirations a little lower and working their way back up the ladder. This is where the course, in Ross' chic Queen St office, comes in. Groups of around eight women spend a working week being guided through career choices, resume writing, interviewing and grooming and etiquette in the workplace.
Psychometric testing ascertains what jobs are best suited to their personalities, and they assess their IT skills - another area that strikes fear in the stay-at-home mother's heart. They are also advised to make check-lists - will they need childcare or take public transport, what emotional impact will it have on the rest of the family, even the best time to do the grocery shop.
Paykel and Ross have modelled a more condensed and affordable course to be run in community centres in New Zealand's main cities this year and are lobbying the government for course funding. Paykel can see benefits in reworking the course to suit other areas of employment, not just professional women. "I see us as a real asset to the new government - we're throwing down the gauntlet to get more people into work," she says. Other organisations are striving to do the same.
The Auckland Chamber of Commerce offers a returning parents programme which seeks to match businesses looking for administrative staff with skilled people coming back to work. After a four-day free training programme, candidates are helped to find positions with companies mindful of a parent's work-life balance.
Work and Income has a range of support available too, offering a free job search, CV polishing and job interview tips, and even gives assistance to some people to pay for a new wardrobe for interviews. WINZ's deputy chief executive, Patricia Reade, says people keen to work will get the services, training and support they need.
"People will not only have jobs, but long-term jobs, with good career paths. They will have increased skill levels to match the needs of the labour market," she says. Her new boss, Minister for Social Development Paula Bennett, has already signalled that the path women take back into the workforce is an issue she will focus on.
Within days of assuming her role, Bennett said there needed to be a debate on whether mothers were being pushed back into work too soon after having children, and getting the balance right between parenting and paid work. The previous government moved towards making it easier for parents by introducing the flexible working arrangements law in 2007, giving employees the right to ask for a variation to their hours and days of work, and their place of work.
Recent research by the Families Commission showed more than three quarters of the 1000 people surveyed were allowed flexible work arrangements by their employers, and four out of 10 were able to work from home. Many people in the survey only took on jobs to fit in with their responsibilities at home, and many at-home parents said they would take up a job if it gave them the flexibility their family needed.
Professional services firm KPMG has a worldwide reputation for looking after the needs of its "parent" employees. In the United States, the company continually makes the top 10 in the Working Mothers' 100 Best Companies list (half of its 22,000 staff are female).
In New Zealand, KPMG has staff on flexi-time: not all are women - roughly a third of those who have requested it are men. Two of the firm's partners - one male, one female - are on flexi-time arrangements this year. "The biggest issue with flexible time is that it works for both sides," says Jan Dawson, KPMG's New Zealand chairwoman. "We have kids come out of university and work for us until the time they want to have children. They've invested a lot in their careers and we've invested a lot in them too, so why would you say no? The whole of New Zealand is short of qualified, competent, and professional people in our workforce."
The immediate skill shortage list in New Zealand, as of July 2008, shows a need for accountants, IT specialists, teachers, architects and travel consultants. Auditors, nurses and chefs are among those on the long-term shortage list. "I always think it's better to have a half a person who knows the business than no one at all," says Dawson. "Clients understand, and really, is anyone not at work these days, with iPhones and BlackBerries? There's no doubt when people are working flexible hours, they get through a lot of work because they're focused. What tends to drop off is networking and firm politics - they're not staying around till 7pm to find out what's going on in the office."
Melissa Christie has the ideal role model for her scheme to return to work. Her mother, Allana, was a teacher who couldn't get a job when her daughter was 10, so she started her own business importing bicycles. The firm is still running today. Christie was a nurse before her three sons were born, and like her mother, is looking to a change of career now they're at school. Nursing hours are difficult: "To do a 7am-3pm shift, I'd need support before and after school. Would it be worth it?" she says.
Christie isn't returning to the workforce out of financial necessity, rather to do something for herself and further her own profession. "I felt over the years it was a waste of my skills being at home. But my main worry was not having the confidence in my own abilities, not knowing what work I was going to be suitable for," she says. Christie did the return2work course in November, where she discovered many of her nursing and people skills, and those she had honed in motherhood - time management and organisation - could suit a career as a personal assistant. It's a job she wouldn't have put herself forward for, she says, fearing that at 36 she would have to start again as an office junior.
"I realise I have a lot more skills and I'm aiming a lot higher than I possibly would have." She's now brushing up on her computer knowledge, and doing work experience for her husband, who owns a Mitre 10 mega store, before she relaunches herself in temping work. "My husband has worked really hard for years, and I've focused on supporting him in that," she says. "But now I need something for myself, but I won't rush into it until I've found exactly what it is I want to do."
