Raelee - Mother of 5 Breaks Bias in Return to Workforce and Exec Career
This is my friend, Raelee, a female Group Director, who has held a number of executive HR positions over the last 20 years. She’s worked in Construction, Oil, Mining, FMCG, Telecommunications most of which are male-dominated industries.
This is story #2 in an 8 part series for International Women's Day that I'm writing, featuring powerful stories of women who have helped "BreakTheBias".
The fascinating thing about Raelee, is that she has built a successful career as a female executive, while raising FIVE children. The key to her success was that she had a super supportive husband, Ian, who put his career on the backburner, so that Raelee could pursue her career as a uni Lecturer and later a corporate HR executive.
She looks back now and says she doesn’t know how she did it – studying part-time for a masters while pregnant, getting up at 2am to study and then packing school lunches and doing school drop-offs and then onto work. Not surprisingly at one point she suffered burnout and post-natal depression.
Returning to corporate life was difficult initially and despite having a degree and a masters, having lectured at university, been on the School P & C and managing many volunteer projects, she couldn’t get a job in corporate. She had been out of the corporate life too long and employers were looking for an “exact fit” in experience.
Naturally mothers don’t fit all the criteria as they have taken time out and done jobs that were more suited from a flexibility perspective. It took some females looking for potential that gave Raelee her first opportunity to get back into the corporate workplace for which she is forever grateful.
What made it possible was her wonderful husband, Ian, whose own employer took a lot of convincing to let him scale back his hours so he could be home with the kids two days a week. This was 15 years ago, so it definitely was not typical at that time.
As Raelee progressed in her career she has worked in male dominated industries and has experienced the ire of some males who questioned her place in the workplace – one going so far as to say “You shouldn’t be working – you should be home looking after those kids.” The bias against working mothers in male dominated industries is subtle sometimes and is frequently played out through a lack of flexibility which predominantly impacts females although this is changing.
Raelee has also learnt the hard way about gender pay equity. An unsolicited (but very welcome) pay increase was given to her one year as a new hire (a male) who was going to be a functional report to her, had negotiated a higher starting salary than she was on and to maintain some pay parity her boss had to give her a raise.
Raelee has also experienced first-hand the value of boards having diversity targets. Working in the HR field she has seen the change in perspective that executives have once a board is engaged, the shift in the company response towards diversity is significant and as results show – this has a positive impact on the overall performance of the company.
Raelee believes that the legislation around parental leave for both parents is so important. She says she is living proof that either parent can be fit for the job. In fact her husband recently took his Long Service Leave of 6 months to care for his newborn grandson.
Raelee is happy to report that while managing a transition back into the workplace wasn’t smooth sailing and there have been mistakes both at work and at home, “We have no drug dealers, the kids still like us and we have two beautiful grandkids now. They’re gorgeous!”
Supporting others achieve their career aspirations is one way you can help break the bias. Raelee acknowledges that you need many people to support and provide opportunities in a career. She is appreciative of those people who helped her and encourages those who are in a position to, to look for the potential in others, particularly mums trying to get back into the workforce - take a chance.
Thank you Raelee, for helping to #BreakTheBias that working mums face, and thank you to your husband for fighting for equal parenting rights. xx
