In a world of inspirational memes and #girlpost Instagram posts, it’s easy to forget that we all get stuck at work, or feel like we can’t find a way forward at times. Sue Unerman is the Chief Transformation Officer at MediaCom and Kathryn Jacob OBE is the Chief Executive at Pearl and Dean. Together they wrote The Glass Wall: Success Strategies For Women At Work And Businesses That Mean Business. Each week answer your work questions with pragmatic, honest advice that’s proven to work…
Q: I live with my boyfriend, we’ve been working from home for three months. He seems to be coping much better with it than me. He looks busier at work and more engaged. I feel lost, a bit lonely and that my career is going nowhere. Plus, I constantly seem to be clearing up and cooking. What can you advise?
KJ: Constantly clearing up is a theme I hear from so many women that I speak to. I think that we feel that because we are at home we have no excuse to let things slide a little bit. It’s the worse combination of channeling a 1950’s housewife coupled with trying to run a career from your kitchen.
SU: I’ve spoken to many women about this and they feel the same. It seems impossible for them to leave dishes or a dirty floor and they just can’t bear to have an argument about it so instead they sort it out. And the undeniably lovely (in many many ways) men that they live with just seem to be very happy for this to be the case. As Kathryn says it is like time travel to mid last century. And it really isn’t just you, the Institute of Fiscal Studies and UCL have done a survey that says that mothers in particular are doing almost two hours more housework than dads.
KJ: Could it be that your boyfriend has replace physical presenteeism in the office with digital presenteeism now – turning up to every video call possible. Are you actually better at organizing your time than him? You are not in competition with him in this respect.
SU: The issue of feeling lonely and out of touch with your colleagues is a very real one. When you are in the office, as we assume you used to be regularly, then you pick up on what is going on without effort. You meet people in the lift or at the tea point and casually chat and this means you are part of the rhythm of the business. Now the serendipitous meeting is no longer. You are not going to bump into someone without planning for this. You could however plan for it. For instance just put some time in perhaps for a non urgent catch up with a colleague that you haven’t seen for a while. You will surely find that they are in as much need of some facetime with you are.
KJ: To escape the feeling of having to do housework because it is annoyingly in front of you how about organizing a working walk with a colleague? This means you will get out of the home, get some exercise and benefit from seeing someone other than your boyfriend during your working week.
SU: It also means that you can dress up a bit if you want to ! I feel as though I am never going to wear those smart but a bit uncomfortable shoes that I used to wear to the office ever again at the moment. It is lovely however to dress up a bit to meet a colleague. And in fact if you make some of your calls just that, just calls, there is no reason why you shouldn’t go for a walk and that too will get you outside in the fresh air.
KJ: How about having a regular appointment with your boyfriend where you agree to finish work by 6pm and then you jointly cook something new and interesting rather than just finish video calls and eat in front of the telly?
SU: You don’t say what sector you work in, but there are lots of online options for meeting new people and actually progressing your career. Whether that means signing up for one of the many conferences that are now happening online or learning a new skill you don’t have to feel that you are stuck. One of the upsides of the lockdown for me is reaching out to chat to people who I wouldn’t have been able to travel to meet. Use your linkedin profile to investigate growth opportunities. Or if you are on Twitter there are communities that might interest you. Allowing time for yourself to do this (how about the time you were tidying up?) could mean that you find a spring board for the next stage of your career.
KJ: Having a plan for your week will stop you falling into the rabbit hole of endless chores. Schedule 20 minutes post breakfast to clear up and do urgent chores then just stop. Just leave it. After that if you don’t have any urgent work to do then read a newspaper or research something to do with your sector. Summarise that research and share it with colleagues. Then do some calls and also think about what you might develop next. The key thing is that you create your own momentum. Some days it might be a lot of things spring to mind, other days it might be one or two things. It doesn’t matter. Your day does not have to be a binary choice between one type of work or housework. You can mix it up. Make that mix work for you. And when you get bored of that mix, mix it up again.
Sue and Kathryn’s bookThe Glass Wall, Success Strategies For Women At Work And Businesses That Mean Business is available from Amazon.
Have you got a question you’d like Sue and Kathryn to answer? Email your questions to feedback@graziamagazine.co.uk. Please note, we will be unable to respond to every single question we receive, and will not be able to respond to any questions personally.