How to return to your job as a manager after an extended leave from work— even in a pandemic
On November 17th, my daughter was born at 29 weeks, which is 11 weeks early.
My company offered what I considered very generous parental leave, 16 weeks, which I had originally been intending to take Jan 31st, which was my daughter's actual due date.
Instead, my leave got kicked off early.
My family and I live in Ohio, and we were seeing a midwife at the Cleveland Clinic, which was 1.5 hours from where we currently live in Eastern Ohio. The occasional trip up to see my wife’s midwife prior to this had not been disruptive, but now, my daughter would be in the NICU at a distant hospital for 113 days (a duration far longer than we’d expected or hoped).
We lived in Airbnbs that whole time to stay close to her, and during that time, a lot changed at my company.
A new director of engineering had just been hired and was settling into his new responsibilities.
He was my new boss.
I had hired a new engineering manager to work more directly with one of my teams.
I’d intended to spend the next 2 months training him.
I was 2 days until a company offsite at Dallas to meet both my new boss and a new hire.
I was now canceling the flights for the trip while sitting in a hospital while my wife suffered from severe preeclampsia, and would be giving birth within a week.
Needless to say, my original plans to prepare my new hire to take over one of my teams, and to build rapport with my new boss, in person, in Dallas, had been drastically altered.
I spent that first week at the hospital next to my wife, watching her oxygen and blood pressure monitor, listening to my daughter's heartbeat in utero, and watching Shark Tank. I also rapidly put together handoff documentation and had what meetings I could with my new hire and boss to make sure things could be as organized as possible for them in my absence. Thankfully, it was the beginning of the new quarter, so my teams had clear direction at least for the next few months.
After I handed things off, all that I once was responsible for, was now in the hands of others.
My focus moved entirely to my family, my wife and 2 children, who were staying with their grandma and grandpa, and to my daughter. I was going to see to it, as best as possible, that she’d come home.
I was in awe of my wife, who fought preeclampsia as long as possible, to give our daughter a better chance. My daughter, who was a fighter even at 2lbs 6oz consistently pushed through trial after trial. The Clinic staff, who were always professional and kind, gave me a deeper sense of appreciation for humanity.
I reflected on my gratitude for my company, and its generous parental leave policy, which allowed me to have this time. The respect for my CEO, who is a mother, and who set an example by taking full parental leave for both her children, soared.
There was definitely still a lot of good in this world.
I hope to tell many stories detailing this NICU journey sometime in the future, but this post is meant to share how to return to work after extended leave, in particular, after, and during, traumatic times.
During my time in Cleveland, I maintained every other week 1–1s with my new hire, and he did a fantastic job keeping his team on track while I was gone (with little direction from me). My new boss and I met a few times over the phone, and I found him to be very empathetic, and knowledgeable and was excited to begin working with him when I returned. My previous boss was ever supportive of my situation, and she gave me updates on where things were at with the company at a higher level.
But generally, I was disconnected from work for nearly four months.
Time marched on, my daughter pushed through her most trying hurdles in December and early January, then began the long, long road to get good enough at feedings such that we could bring her home. Early March, toward the end of my parental leave, she, at last, was discharged.
But on the way back home from the Cleveland Clinic, we learned that Ohio had its first two cases of Coronavirus, more specifically, COVID-19.
Out of the frying pan and into the fire.
I spent two weeks adjusting to our new routine at home with my other two kids, and my new daughter, as my wife maintained a dedicated pumping schedule (our daughter would not breastfeed very well so we had to bottle feed). My children, 7 and 5, began to learn to make do with a lot less attention from mommy and daddy, and I was impressed with how they managed.
The routine was hard. We used to eat out a lot to save time, but now, due to COVID-19 spreading across the US and Ohio, we were self-quarantined to protect our daughter, and ourselves, which meant ordering groceries via Instacart, and making all our meals at home.
The amount of cooking and clean up afterward was a shock, I still can’t believe how much time we saved eating out. I also saved calories, because eating at home meant fewer french fries, and I lost 10 lbs in 2 weeks.
It took a few days before my wife or I got any reasonable sleep, but even after we established a manageable routine, I could not imagine how I was going to step back into my position as manager and effectively lead after all that had happened over the last few months, and as the world faced the biggest historical event of my lifetime.
But after one full week of being back at work, I’m feeling confident that I’m positioned to manage my teams effectively. There are three things I did that I feel have positioned me to succeed that I believe would be helpful to anyone coming back to management after an extended leave, during chaotic times, or both.
#1 Give yourself permission to not be perfect
We are often our own worst critic. Even with both my boss and my boss’ boss telling me explicitly to not overburden myself when I returned, I still felt a ton of pressure to perform out of the gate. Now, I was in a fortunate position to have this support from my management, and already worked remotely, and I understand not everyone has this setup. But, I believe in this world of a pandemic, while many people juggle a new homeschooling, working from home, cooking, and quarantine routine, empathy will be higher than normal from our management and companies. Regardless, it’s critical you don’t add undue pressure from yourself even if you are still getting pressure from above.
So how do you do this? For me, my hand was forced. I simply had to schedule times during the workday to help with family things, such as feeding our daughter while my wife pumps, making the family breakfast each morning, cleaning pump parts, disinfecting groceries when they were delivered, and preparing supper, amongst other things. I realized immediately I was not going to be able to have 9 hours of focused time for work, so I got creative.
First, I deleted all previous meetings from my calendar. I wanted a clean slate. This is hard, but a critical first step. This will only hurt for a second then you will feel amazing, I promise :)
Next, I blocked the first 3 hours of my day with a “Please ask before scheduling” notice. I reserved this time slot for other Eastern Time Zone folks and made it clear I might be holding our daughter or doing some chores during meetings. If you are a manager, you’re probably already good at multitasking, and I found it easy to focus on the conversation while doing home tasks that require little thought. More often than not, I use the morning hours to catch up on slack, email, and mentally plan for the rest of the day.
The middle of the day is open to meetings, and my wife and I agreed that a four-hour time block would be used for me to take meetings as uninterrupted as possible.
In the last half of the day, I extended beyond my usual desired 5 pm cutoff, with another “Please ask before scheduling” notice. I informed the team that I’d reserve this time for only critical meetings. Thus far, I’ve not needed to use this time for work.
I have not worked a solid eight hours any given day thus far, but my new schedule has forced me to be more strategic with my time, and find areas to delegate, which I feel has actually made me more productive.
The key here is, schedule “some” focused time for at least 4 hours of a given day, but give yourself flexibility for the rest of the day.
Lastly, share your schedule and plan with your direct reports, indirect reports, and manager. For the “Please ask before scheduling” blocks, I felt it was important to share that I would prioritize time with them if needed.
#2 Create a document with an index of all relevant documents for your review, and a 1-month schedule that details your action items with clear expected results week by week. Share this document with your manager and team.
Part of my anxiety about returning to work was, I did not know what I’d need to prioritize, and where I’d need to focus my attention.
After the first day back, I used every meeting to gather documentation about upcoming projects, a recent reorg, and high-level expectations from the business so I had easy access to all those docs for review.
I also created a table in this document detailing what I wanted to accomplish each week. I shared this document with my manager and my peers, and they confirmed that my 1-month plan for myself met their expectations.
This did two things for me, it got me organized around the most important work to focus on, and gave me confidence that my one-month-plan was correct. I built the plan with an understanding of my new schedule, so knew it would not be overwhelming. So this document, in essence, took the mystery out of my first month back and gave me the peace of mind to drive forward on the initiatives I’d written down, and delegate, or reprioritize anything else that might surface, or be a distraction.
#3 Build Trust
You’ve been gone a long time, and it’s important to reassure everyone that despite all that you’ve been through, and despite crazy world events, you are going to provide a steady hand as you lead your teams.
If you’ve done what I shared in point one, and given yourself some breathing room, you will have already taken a major step toward building trust.
How?
You are going to be calmer, and present yourself more confidently to management and peers. Others will see that you are coming back to work with a realistic plan, and won’t worry about you immediately burning yourself out. Your newfound calm will then help you be organized and deliberate as you put together your 1-month game plan, and when you share that with your management and team, they will see that you are tackling the most important work, with focus and intent. Additionally, they will have the opportunity to make suggestions if you should be prioritizing something differently, giving you even more direction on how to approach your next month. If this happens, accept the feedback graciously, debate if necessary, and pivot if it makes sense.
Lastly, you should plan to meet with your direct reports as quickly as possible by setting up your first 1–1s with them. I believe you should make these 1–1s weekly reoccurring meetings. Keeping a tight alignment with your team is crucial to the success of the projects your team is working on. Also, you should set up 1–1s with indirect reports, project managers, and business partners, to reconnect, and hopefully, show them your excitement for the work they have done while you were away, and work that they will be doing next. Ask them how their career development is going, and take note of anything you could do to help them in their journey.
One week done, many more to come
The steps I just shared have worked to give me significant confidence in the upcoming weeks, as we plan for the next quarter, and begin planning beyond that. I’m feeling connected to my team, to my manager, to my peers, and to my business partners. And I’ve done all of this while feeling less stressed than before I started back up at work.
How is this, considering I’m now doing even more?
Before, I was letting the state of the world, and the hard routine at home, dictate and drive a fear that I would not be able to step back into my role at work successfully. But by giving myself permission to change the way I worked, getting organized, and reconnecting with folks at the company, my confidence has surged.
I do not have a crystal ball. There are many hurdles that I will have to conquer both at work and home over the next number of months. But by setting myself up for success in the first week back, I feel an excitement, rather than anxiety, about the future. Going back to work has had the side benefit of also allowing me to focus on something other than the pandemic, and helped me get into an even better rhythm with the cooking, cleaning, diapers, feedings and general chaos of quarantine with a new baby, and a premie at that.
I believe these guidelines, or something similar, can also help other managers and leaders coming back from an extended leave of absence.
Perhaps this is you, and if so, I’m rooting for you! Now go make a plan ;)
