Return to work: trying to make lemonade out of the lemon role I’ve been offered
Hi Mums,
In a tale as old as time I am about to return from maternity leave only to be told that my senior leadership role has been restructured (a new executive has taken over) and I’m essentially now demoted to another layer down in the organization. It’s shitty but I want to optimize the situation for all it’s worth.
A few things I’d like advice on:
If you were in this situation, would you ask to come back and work fewer days? For example, three days a week. If you took less days, did you choose to send your child to daycare on two/three consecutive days or split up week?
In this situation, did you force them to give you a functional redundancy? How did you go about this?
Or, would you just put your head down and cruise until a second maternity leave? I would like to have a second child couple of years.
The things I’m not looking forward to I return is navigating my direct reports (several managers and their teams) and how anxious they are feeling about the change. I’ve basically had my wings clipped and all the interesting parts of my role have now been taken away.… I’ll be a glorified meeting attendee without any real delegated authority and no updated PD (yet). I know this ain’t a unique situation to me and I’m hoping to make the best of it.
Thanks in advance for your advice or tips 🫶