Lynda Tanner, a mother of three from Brisbane, took advantage of her employer’s maternity leave entitlements when each of her children was born. She took a year away from the workforce each time but after the birth of her third child something had shifted. While she loved her job and had been provided with wonderful opportunities, she increasingly felt the pull towards spending quality time with her family, particularly as her first two children were reaching school-age.
“I decided it was time to leave the workforce completely for a larger chunk of time and devote that time to my family but also to re-assess and reflect on my career and personal goals,” Tanner explains. “I guess I’d come to a fork in the road. Everyone is different and for me, I was just at that stage where I saw a window of my kids at this certain age and I didn’t want to miss it.”
Prior to this she had a long and varied career, much of it spent in Brisbane working in management roles for local government. Her career history is impressive: she spent 17 years working for Brisbane City council, working as an executive assistant, in the Lord Mayor’s office handling complex ministerial correspondence, in civic affairs and event management before moving into senior local laws and policy roles and eventually leading a procurement team, running key tenders for the council.
After two years away from the workforce, half way through 2013, Tanner felt reinvigorated and ready to look for a new, challenging role – but with a caveat: it had to be flexible to fit in with her family commitments. She found it working in a part time role with Caltex’s procurement team as a sourcing specialist. The role sees her looking after gas contracts and ensuring all of the right equipment is ordered for the laboratories.
While the job had previously been filled full time and divided across two teams, those responsible for hiring realised that there was a rich pool of talent out there – highly qualified working mothers who required flexible arrangements. To tap into this, Caltex advertised for two separate sourcing specialists. Catherine Fahey, a mother of two based in Sydney, joined Tanner with Caltex at roughly the same time.
Fahey was also seeking a diverse and flexible workplace within the corporate sector but wanted to balance her job with time with her children. Like Lynda, she’d found the lion’s share of part time roles advertised were not aligned to her skillset and level of experience.
“A lot of part time roles were administrative for small manufacturing companies or entry level secretarial roles…I found that big organisations tended not to hire part time roles and this was frustrating,” Fahey says.
Tanner agrees, saying that due to her managerial experience recruiters were continuing to pitch her CV for leadership roles when this was something she wasn’t after.
“I think that was hard for recruiters and employers to understand. With my family being so young and demanding, to be honest, I wanted a role that was going to progress my career and was going to be challenging and diverse and applicable with my talent… but at the same time it can really take the pressure off family commitments not being in a leadership role for the time being,” she says. “Caltex just got it though. They have work-life balance at their core. That’s what this role is about – it ticked all the boxes, it’s flexible with interesting and compelling work, it’s close to home, and I work with a really diverse, happy team. Leadership roles are about not just looking at your own career but really assisting with the careers of your team. I love this but at this point in my life I want that simplified. I am very happy in this role exploring my skills but being part of a team rather than leading it.”
Fahey agrees, and says she’s impressed that Caltex foster and support women in leadership roles when the time is right for them.
Her career is as interesting and impressive as Lynda’s — she kicked it off as an executive assistant with a senior CEO at EY, worked her way up the career ladder, working in finance roles for Westpac and in 1999 joined IBM on a project for the 2000 Sydney Olympics – a career highlight for her. “To be in the Olympic Games environment and riding on that momentum was incredible,” she says. “From there I moved into Procurement, managing the Corporate Purchasing Card program for Asia Pacific and other e-procurement and project management roles within IBM procurement.
“My career plan is to move up and progress my career with Caltex but right now I am ecstatic to be where I am. When my kids are older I’ll look at this and I know management here support me in this.”
Fahey left the workforce in 2007 – her two boys are four and six – and in 2011 decided it was the right time to jump back in. That’s when she realised how hard it could be to secure a suitable position. “There were no part time quality roles…it took about two years to find this. I was beginning to think it didn’t exist, but as soon as I read the position description for the part time Sourcing Specialist role at Caltex I knew this was for me.
She values the support she’s given at Caltex the most, along with the company’s ethos of flexibility (she works two days in the Sydney CBD office and one day from home) and diversity.
Her advice is for mothers returning to the workforce to not give up the search and to keep in touch with recruiters, companies they can see themselves working for and job prospects even while pregnant or on maternity leave, “keeping a network in place.” It can be daunting to get your CV back into shape but it’s important to not give up the pursuit, she adds.
“I would also say when you do find that role it is just as important for the employee to be flexible as it is the employer. If you’re working three days a week like me, be flexible to swap days, start early or be prepared to fill in when you can.”