Transcription

• Speaker #0

  Hi, welcome to The Pulse, the podcast where we explore the heartbeat of life and work. I'm Julie, your host, and I'm thrilled to have you join me on this journey. Every two weeks, I will bring you a regular dose of inspiration, practical tips, and regular stories about personal development, wellness, and career growth. Whether you're looking for motivation, fresh perspective, or just a reminder that you're not alone, you are in the right place. So welcome and let's dive in. Hi, welcome to The Pulse. I hope you're doing well. I think this is our episode 27 and today I would like to talk about a topic that actually is basically the genesis of this podcast in the first place. Back in 2024, I wanted to create, back at the time, even started in 2023 actually, I wanted to work on helping people return to work after being absent, mainly after sick leave, but also for the case scenarios. I was interested in supporting such process because for me, I... knew how difficult it had been for myself and I'll talk in a minute about it but also how based on having talked to other people how challenging it was and based on that it was really from first from an angle where I wanted to help others through different programs and then as I saw that while it was very common and very understanding and people wanted it the people that needed it, wanted it in a way. But that it was not reaching beyond and that it needed reaching beyond in order for support, for financial support, etc. I won't go into details, but overall, I thought about maybe it would be good to do a podcast about people who had faced different case scenarios that could share or I could share their stories and where we could discuss and talk about the different issues and the different topics around returning to work and the overall impact. And while it would have been an amazing podcast, I realized very quickly that first of all, I would not have enough episodes to make it a proper podcast. And second of all, that a lot of people didn't want to talk in front of the camera or even put their stories out there. It felt too personal. Not everyone is like me and is open to sharing and I have to respect it. But even considering changing the names or considering actually reading their story myself. It felt very difficult for some of them to put themselves out there and to properly also even write on paper what they had felt or how they currently felt in the moment. And so I kind of had to shift and rethought because the idea of doing a podcast overall was still on my mind. So I reshifted to The Pulse, which is an amazing story and I love it. But I always said I really wanted to do an episode about return to work because it's still in my heart very important to me. So today I would like to talk about the topic, about also giving you some insights of how people may feel, what you have to consider, if this happened to yourself, if this also happened to a friend of yours, or even if potentially a colleague or one of your direct reporters dealing with that. And we'll talk about what's available out there. And of course, it's highly dependent on country to countries, but there are pieces that you can do or things that you can consider and also how you can yeah you can help them overall so let's dive in I think this is my my go-to sentence for every single episode so let's go let's start first very easily by talking about what type of scenarios can people end up having to leave work and returning to work and the scenarios that I know the most is for sure having to leave work due to a health issue and then returning after a while when you feel potentially better. And that health issue can be physical. It can also be mental. You can also have potentially, I mean, every single parent who is having a parental leave is returning to work. You also have some cases, also some people that were let go and then for a while they struggled to return to work and potentially the process took longer. This is potentially a special case in that because most likely they will not return into the prior place they were at. And I think that would be the focus on today's episodes, but I just want to mention it. And also you have potentially some people that had to take care of someone. And so for a certain time, they were not within a work environment. I'm mentioning work environment because I have to say that the people taking care of others at home or mothers or fathers or whomever is taking care of a... of a child, of an adult, of parents, whatever, is still work and that represents a lot of to-dos. But what I mean by not returning to the workplace is not to be in a work setting environment, meaning being in a company or a startup or being in a building with colleagues in a certain context. And no matter which case scenario we'll talk about, there are different pieces that will be valid and some others that will not. but overall I think All those people, even though potentially they worked on themselves, on their health, on taking care of others, they've done a lot, most likely. And during that phase, that didn't mean they didn't work. They just did not have a regular working title in a workplace. I hope I make sure that I don't make anyone feel uncomfortable in the way I express myself. I'm just trying to find the best way to... conduct really that message that I know a lot of people that are still working, even though it's not an official income, even though they are not going into an official site or having an official nine to five or whatever role that is considered working time, even though they are fully working. So I hope I expressed myself pretty well. Again, I do not like to script too much my episodes. So it's not like I researched an official term. I hope that people... feel like they understand what I mean by that. And so from a context standpoint, this is the all the categories of people I would like to talk about and what they face. And from one to the others, there is different case scenarios. But whatever is the case, at the end of the day, they were in one settings, and then it's entering a workplace, a workforce, that is potentially an environment that is very different. And what all of those people are encountering common is that they had a change most likely in their life and during a certain period of time they had to deal with that change and as I said it could be a change of environment having to take care of a family member it could be like having a newborn it could be also having a disease and having to deal with the newly disease or a parent or someone that has a disease and it could also be Many different scenarios where during a certain time period, you had a different environment, a different setting. By the way, another type of person we could talk about is an expat family where one of the two could not work during the time due to visa. During that one, two, three, even ten years potentially, they did not work. And that did not mean that they didn't work for the family and did a lot of things. but potentially there was no official work. from a, again, contractual standpoint. So because they were not allowed based on the contract or the visa. And so this is all the thing that you have to think about. All those people most likely had a change of environment and had to adapt during a certain period of time and then readapt again later on. And that is a process that is definitely not easy and can be challenging for people to find their way again and to find a place within the work environment that's most likely kept going without them during that period of time and advanced. And therefore, if they... go back to a work environment, it's not the same environment as before. So let's talk about the different pieces that can happen when it comes to what they face overall. The first one I'll talk about, because this is the one that I face the most for myself, is I take someone that has been sick. And my case scenarios, I was sick, and I had to deal with chemotherapy. For about six months. So I was away from the office from May until I think it was mid to end November of the same year. So it was still considered a short time. But during that time, I learned I had cancer to deal with chemotherapy. I had my body was weak. I had to deal with a lot of changes in how I was doing day to day tasks and also work move forward. There was actually a real work happening in the middle. And my colleagues were moving forward with tasks, with day to day. I was also seeing my friends getting, I think I had two friends who moved across the world. I had another friend who had a job change. So a lot of things changed, even if it's within 10 months, one year or even less. Sometimes a lot can happen. And during that time, you may be, if you are the one who has been sick or has been away, it can feel overwhelming to think, oh, wait, I'm here doing what I have to do for myself. But at the same time, I see everything that is happening next to me and that I'm potentially missing out in some ways. And that can create a feeling really of fear of missing out, FOMO, let's put it that way. And that potentially create also this eagerness or this feeling of of some people to want to come back faster or want to get back to. regular life, I put it in quote, because this is definitely not regular life. Everything is regular life in some way, but it can be triggering for some people. And what I saw when I came back, just to share personally my story, is that I wanted to come back so fast because I wanted to get back to the old me, get back to my old life, feel normalcy again. But I didn't expect, first of all, that my body was physically a lot weaker. that my mental health had not dealt yet with what I had lived. And during the period of chemo, I really dealt with how I'm feeling and what I'm feeling, like the fact that I have to beat cancer, but not about what this meant, that I almost died. The fact that this changed completely the course of my life, also how I viewed life overall. completely changed but I was not yet in the process of dealing with that change I was really just in the focus on beating cancer full stop and all this almost came after and we'll talk in a minute about it but I feel like this is all what I'm saying but just to continue on the journey and also the people around me struggle to know what to say because it's not easy to talk to someone who has lived what do I say to someone who had cancer you Not easy. I feel potentially uncomfortable because that reminds me of someone that I know also is sick or potentially it reminds me of a parent that died or potentially it's like, oh, it's a scary disease that scares me even more. And I talk about this one, but it's valid for everything. It's valid if you know that the person has been away for a year or two years taking care of a parent and end of life parent, for example, and that parent finally passed away. What do you say? What do you say to, you know, like potentially a family and the child is born, but actually the child is born sick? What do you say? And many, many different situations. I think the one where it's easier as an external person to say is whenever the person was on maternity leave and came back healthy, everything is OK. But still, the parent most likely has to deal with a lot of change in their life, handling a small child, having to figure out. Dealing with a new family dynamic, the worry of staying at work when they wanted to go take care of the kids, etc. So there is a lot of scenarios where this change is, first of all, difficult to handle for the person. But it's also difficult to handle by basically the colleagues, the other people from the outside of like, how do we balance? How do we work on this together? How do we help and understand each other in this current context? This is where you really have to be very patient, I have to say, and also very understanding that potentially you're not going to get everything right. And I have to say that I had some amazing, amazing people surrounding me. But even if they were amazing, they could not do everything right. And there was moments that we didn't understand each other. There was moments I clashed with my boss at the time, not because she didn't do anything. She didn't do anything wrong. It's just the fact that I was in a certain context, struggling myself to deal with a certain situation, a certain change. you It's not easy, no matter the situation. So you have to understand that you, if you're the one dealing with that return to work, if you're the one who has a colleague returning to work, if you are the boss of someone returning to work, it's not going to be an easy situation. And you just have to be patient and to help each other work together. How can you help each other? The first thing you have to do is... basically almost to have that open and honest conversation with the person. And I would recommend this is between the boss and the employees, potentially HR or whomever. If there is a psychologist, if there is an organization within your company that is supporting the return to work and someone, a trusted person, then I would also definitely involve them. And this is kind of like a work that in my opinion has to be done together with the four different parties. you basically to work together and define together kind of an approach to that return to work. And I'm not talking about what is already preset within companies. A lot of time you have already, I mean, at least in some European countries. So I know it's the case in France. I know it's the case in Germany where you have the possibility to do a slow return to work with potentially some hours a week, et cetera, and grow. But this is not. for everyone, first of all. And also, this is not automatically only what you need, because yes, there is a physical component. As I mentioned earlier, I was exhausted and I definitely could not at the very beginning work more than a few hours a week. But there is also the emotional part. And this is what I really want to talk about. So from an emotional side, I think you need to kind of set up this multi-discussion and start from a point of like, okay, how do I feel right now. What do I feel comfortable sharing with my colleagues? What do I not want to share with my colleague? And that has to be respected fully by everyone who's in that table. And then what do I need right now is also important. And potentially you're not going to have the answer if you're the one that is sick. I have to say that I didn't have the answer at the time. I really just wanted to return to work and start my work. and I didn't realize that actually... I needed more, I needed a different support, but it took me longer. And this is why the second part is to set up a regular catch-up with those four people to see how the person is advancing, how the person is progressing within this return to work. Because you could potentially have the feeling that this person is not fully feeling comfortable around the other colleagues. First of all, by the way, very often there is no re-onboarding. And when someone has been away for... Six months or more, usually something changed, either within the strategy or either within the progress of the project they were on or the day-to-day work that they were on. And giving that couple of hours to an employee to properly re-onboard them so that they don't feel like, okay, just by yourself while we work just with those documents, that you really take the time. can be highly helpful. So I would suggest to do that to every single person that can. And it's valid also for a woman returning after maternity leave or even dad returning after maternity leave, whatever it is, like parental leave, health issues, mental, physical, whatever, taking a few minutes to help that person return by redoing the onboarding into the company if they are. returning to the same company can bring a high value. And as I mentioned, for the rest, it's really about setting up a kind of a plan. How regular do you meet? How do you like exchange and trust each other? Because the more you're going to be able to exchange, potentially your thoughts are going to evolve, your feeling is going to evolve towards what's happening, how am I coping with the change, etc. I'll give again my example, but here. I've talked to other people, so it's not only me, but I don't want to talk about other people because I want them to feel comfortable. So I really only share my example in that case. But when I returned, I had said, okay, no, I keep the fact that I had cancer to really my very close team knows and my leadership knows and HR, that's it. Actually, I realized I was on campus and then people were like, oh, Julie, I haven't seen you in a very long time. Or, oh, Um. Okay. Oh yeah. Who are you again? Oh yeah. We met a year ago. Things like this that really felt like, oh my God, those people, I knew they knew me. They have seen me so many times, but it's natural. People forget you because even if you are a top performer, people get busy with their own life and they don't realize that then potentially you feel even more lonely because you feel like I've lost my network. I've lost the people that knew me and I have to. to start over and it's not a, it's not a good feeling. So a couple of months after I was like, okay, but I almost want to talk about it. I want to, and I exchange even with diversity lead at the time and we exchanged about it and he said, well, maybe you need to write about it. You need to express yourself. If this is something that feels for you very uncomfortable, then maybe this is a way to go for you. And again, it's not saying that this has to be the same way for everyone. I'm just trying to give you an understanding that At the very beginning, I didn't want to share. To then a few months later, I was like, okay, I want to talk about it because I have now short hair because I removed my wigs after a few months in the office. I am very different than before. People forgot about me, etc, etc. And I wanted to express why, but I wanted still, of course, I didn't want to look weak. I didn't want to feel like I was different than everybody else. So it was a lot of exchange. work and time where I was going back and forth and you need to let the employee, the person go through that. And again, I'm mentioning my story, but it's valid for many other. If you have to take care of someone that is ill, potentially when you come back, you don't want to talk because you potentially don't want to have people asking you, oh, what happened? Oh, I'm so sorry for you. Oh my God. Can I do anything? Oh, give me some details. Some people don't want to talk about it. And you need to let those people decide if they want to talk about it or not, to give them the space for a blank, to make them feel comfortable. But you can't force them to talk about it. Some people are going to want to, some people are not going to want to. And it's valid for 20, 30, 40 years later. It's still valid that potentially someone you It's not going to want to talk about something hard that happened to them. They might stay and say something basic like, oh, I did this or this happened to me. Full stop. I don't want to give the detail. And you have to also respect this piece. So it's a challenge. And this is why it was so important for me to start these episodes. Because you're not going to get it perfectly. But you have to understand that. The person's feeling is going to evolve along the way in either direction. Wanting to share more, wanting to share less is going to stay the same. Potentially at some point, they're going to be angry. They're going to be happy. They're going to find a different way of life. They're going to want to change something. And you have to support them through this process. If you want your employee to perform or you want your colleague to perform or you want everyone around you to be okay, For this, you need to ensure that... you have the people are happy in the job and that return to work. is a time that potentially will be a struggle, will be a readjustment also for the colleagues, by the way. And so until you find the right balance again and you find harmony within that group, you have to give the space for the person returning to find happiness and to feel good again and to feel comfortable. Now I want to talk also about, you know, returning to work after maternity leave or paternity leave. Parent relief, let's go with parent relief, because this is also the case when I see, I'm not a parent, but I have a lot of friends, family members who are parents, and I've seen them in the last couple of years, and I've seen the differences in terms of how easy for some of them it is to return to work, how hard it is for some of the others. And there is no right and wrong. They're all amazing parents. They're all amazing employees, by the way. They're all amazing at their work. It's just a different of feelings, a different of situation, and it's never easy. And you have also in that context to give the time for someone to return to work after this phase, because something changed. They have to readapt their routines. They have to find new ways to work or to balance their day-to-day life. And there is a lot more about this. But I would really like with this episode, because I don't want it to be too long today. And I guess I will be editing a lot. I just wanted to start bringing that topic forward. So this is what I wanted to do this first episode on. I'm definitely planning to talk about other pieces. But really, first thing first is defining what you say and don't say with a person. And defining the message of return to work. The second piece. is giving the space for the person to adapt and to change by creating a trust environment. The third topic is to spend a bit of time on re-onboarding with the person, not to leave them alone in a corner. And I think that's it. I think it's only a top three. But as I mentioned, I didn't want this episode to be too long because I could talk for hours and hours and I'm very passionate about it. And it's also not just to share my stories, but it's just... starting point to more conversation about it. I thought we are at the end of January and I'm someone that is very much into growth, into development, into improvement. And I myself have a lot of objectives, but I realized that a lot of those objectives are also due to the fact that my life changed in 2017 when I was diagnosed with cancer. And now my life feels not shorter, but it feels like I have to live to 100%. And I know this lifestyle. it's not easy to understand for everyone. And even today, I'm pretty sure some of my colleagues are struggling when they see how much I have on my plate or potentially even my boss. I don't know, maybe I should ask him. And also my friends, sometimes they look at how much I plan, how much objective I have, how much I want to achieve, how much, and it's not about just work, by the way, it's also like traveling and doing this podcast and enjoying life with Skylar, my dog. It's just 200% all the time. And that comes from what happened to me. Part of it was already there. I was always someone that was always go, But it just expanded with what happened to me. And if someone is not able to understand that, the person is not going to be able to understand that in dealing with me on a regular basis. And so imagine someone returning to work. that is completely different because something changed to them. If the people around them are not working with them to find a new way and expect them to be the same as before, it's not going to work. They're different. Something changed in their life. Something drastic happened to them that made their life and their purpose and their view of the world change and evolve. And so you cannot expect the same balance for your team as before. You can't expect the same balance around you as before. So you need, as a leader, you need as HR, you need as social worker, and you need you as also the person that is going through the change to understand that this is a new reality. It's different and you cannot expect the same thing. And it's beautiful, but it's also hard. And it's going to be months and months of hard time. I have to say to myself, it took me years to get to be fully okay with what happened. And still some days. I think my therapist would say potentially I'm not, but it's part, it's a new, it's a change. And for a long time, it took me really a long time to understand that it was a... It was not, I was, I was never going to be back to who I was before, but I was just a different person. And what does that different person is? And of course, potentially some people are going to be wiser and being able to understand that. And as I said, depending on the context, but sometime something huge happened to you and it takes time. So I think I spoke a lot. I think potentially I said the thing backwards. So let's see how the editing goes. I hope I have enough. Because we have Monday, it's again for Sunday. I should have recorded over the weekend, but I was quite tired. And as I mentioned, I have a lot on my plate at the moment. And I still want to do these episodes because I really enjoy doing them. And I don't like to overly prepare as well because I really want to speak from the heart. As a friend said, your episodes don't sound like AI. So I'm appreciative of that comment because I really don't want to sound like AI. We will do an episode on AI. but from a different perspective. But anyway, I hope you liked it. I hope this also inspired you to consider the colleagues around you, other people around you, and how their new life or their changes can impact them. And I want to say to all the people out there that are going through it that I'm always happy to exchange. I'm always happy to support in any way. As I said, it's really a cause. And I would love one day to make it something bigger. But for now... please don't hesitate to reach out also thank you to everyone who was there thank you to everyone who doubts with the the difficulty and the challenges on my i have quite a list of names but really i do appreciate all their support throughout this overall process so my dog is looking at me so i think i really have to go have a nice day bye