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Submitted by jchudiak on
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Hello everyone,

I am 5 months pregnant and starting a new job in 5 days as a Manager of a team of Supervisors in Application Development and Integration as well as a Manager of a team of 0 in Robotic Process Automation (I get to build this team when I arrive with a Supervisor or Team Lead in place).

I have listened to all the podcasts related to the 90 Day Plan and I'm curious what your thoughts are on how this changes when I'll be gone for 6-12months on Mat Leave at the end of 120 Days.

What is your advice for how I may need to adapt the 90 Day Plan?

Thank you!

Jessey

TSchow's picture
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Hello Jessey,

For starters I have seen alot of women work though this part of their lives, and you do have people cheering for your success. Personally building a great relastionship with your team leads, and emphasising regular communication with documentation to include setting up regular status meetings (daily, weekly, etc).

If it was me in my developement I would include the managers tools podcasts on remote work. Since you still can be productive even if you are not directly in the same room with everyone else.

The DISC profiles will help alot, and I suspect with these kinds of teams your people will be very similar.

jrb3's picture
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I remember how much distraction my wife encountered while trying to grow children and teams at the same time.  Much coping happened when she narrowed focus by splitting off responsibilities.  The usual mechanism I've encountered for that, organizationally, is budding out a team where once was an individual contributor, or having a supervisor become a manager of supervisors, or similar "turn one seat into several".

My thoughts lean towards figuring out quickly who will be your #2, and how you will work together at distance.  Depending on the current size of your first team, and the target size of your second team, that might mean really two #2s (one per team);  then one or both become direct reports under you as you step upward to let them grow out into #1s themselves.

How many directs and skips in Application Development?  How many directs and skips (to grow to) in Robotic Process Automation?  How many directs can you safely handle?  How much professional and household support can you craft, eg housecleaner weekly, husband and friends and relatives to cook and drive and run errands, actual and virtual assistants to help with meal plans and grocery lists along with interviews and candidate contacts ....  Basically, what work do you see needs to be done, and how will you see to it that it gets done without taking over your life and the time/attention/energy is left after family is handled?

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Relevant over on Linked-In, posted in late September (2022).  Deborah Liu (CEO, Ancestry) talks about her three maternity leaves, reaching them, and returning from them.  Thought this might be useful.

I endorse her advice, to restart from leave on a Thursday (not a Monday), given my family's leaves -- two maternity and two other.  You can isolate a lot of administrivia and initial reconnections to those two days, and if something's not going well with child-care, the weekend is right at hand.

TSchow's picture
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I knew I was missing something, "Remote Manager" is exactly what you are entering and should help considerable.

https://www.manager-tools.com/training/virtual-effective-remote-manager-...