Work-Life Balance for Today’s Women

Invited to voice on work life balance on women's day eve, not a subject I love to speak on but the scriber
in me is always greedy.

I start saying every day is valuable to each of us. Nothing special for women that too on a special date.
With that let me also share I hardly balance. But I am committed. It paid off in most cases. And when I
failed, yes many big and trivial, gave it sometime just to bounce back or trace a new path. Sharing some
learning’s.

Know yourself, your strengths and make a choice. Try valuing each role you have picked up in life and
essay them. Acknowledge mistakes and learn from it. Have a few good and diverse friends both in
personal and professional life.

Take it easy. Each game is not meant to be won. Change is a welcome word; try it when things go wrong.
Consciously keep depression away and practice to be happy. Pick a few positive people in life and invest
time in relationships that help you keep paddling the daily juggle. And finally take breaks, refuel to keep
the energy flowing.

Signing off with a saying, prepare your breakfast table before you go to sleep. Bet managing dining table
is a big project of daily life. A little planning helps!

Sonali Bhattacharya, Former Chapter President & Founder Member- Sr Director Cognizant
Women's Day, celebrated on March 8, to honor the movement for women's rights and to build support
for achieving universal suffrage for women, is a recognition of equality for women at the workplace..
Equal pay for equal work. But while we women today benefit from this, it does not in any way provide
us equal work at home.

Traditionally, looking after home and family has been the sole domain of women and even when they
are at the workplace working shoulder to shoulder with men the same equality does not percolate to
the home environment. Instinctively too women also prefer to take on themselves many of the
responsibilities like child care including their social and academic development (“Mom must come with
me for that birthday party! Not you Dad”), cooking (“I don’t want to eat what the maid cooked ... I
want the pasta that Mom made “), and other such chores. So most of us have had to walk that
tightrope while building a career with family.

Sharing my own experiences - the biggest boon we have in India is, of course, doting grandparents. And
so after my son was born, he too did a 9-5 routine attending “office” at my mother’s house where we
dropped him while going to work. But after a while my parents had to move out of town and I surely did
not wish my children to spend their early years with domestic help, having read somewhere that brain
development happens in the first five years of life .

Opting out of my cushy corporate life at TCS, I worked as a freelancer in programming. IBM had just
launched the Personal Computer (PC .. what we now know as desktop ) and my client, who had set
up his business recently and wanted to encourage women professionals actually helped me set up a
machine at home. This was the mid-80s where computers were housed in gigantic air-conditioned glass
cages.. So a computing facility in an ambient environment at my doorstep was a God-sent for me!

After the children were in a full time school it was time for me too, to get back to a full time
professional job, but those days career breaks were a big no-no even for women . My full time job now
was to update my CV and send to all the IT firms … but soon I realized there was little or no response. So
decided to explore options in training, even in my years in consulting, I had identified this as a strength
area, and it was always a passion with me. Private firms like NIIT, DataPro were just beginning to appear
on the horizon in the training area, as education was earlier confined only to academic institutions.
Initially they hired me only as part time faculty. Later at the interviews, the first question.. Why did you
take a career break? My honest answer every time was that I wanted to bring up my children … and
strangely the interviewers soon began to respect that.

So It was NIIT that helped me transition back into a full time career once again! After that too there
were many challenges in managing home and family. Perhaps this is why the women make such great
project managers; it is a skill that they need to practice every day!!

Alakananda Rao, CEO & Director Alvari Systems

I did my Master’s degree and PhD from IIT Kharagpur in Applied Geology in 1981 and joined Geological
Survey of India as Geologist, and retired from there as a Director. As our profession does not
differentiate between men and women, we have to do extensive work during field survey in remote
areas in the country. Most of these locations are out of reach from urban habitats and we have to a stay
in tents at least for 5 months without electricity/running water etc. Obviously there is an inherent
hazard in balancing the professional job and family life including rearing up children. Personally, I have
one son and I would take him along with me during these field visits. He too learnt to live in a tent away
and lead a hardy life.

My child was brought up in a remote/jungle environments, where he could hear/smell the nature, this
childhood experience in nature helped him to become humane, to empathize and to take decisions
based on philanthropic considerations. I feel this has contributed to his growth as a human being!

I feel when any student chooses any subject for study, like Geology in my case, he or she must be aware
of the hardships they have to face. If we women try to escape from the field postings while we demand
equal pay and rights, men will never respect us. I believe ladies are strong enough to tackle any kind of
circumstances be it professional field or family life. It is only the determination which cannot be taught,
with which she can compete with any male counterpart. I and am proud that I could fulfill my
professional and family requirements with equal skills, that both my colleagues as well as my family still
appreciates.

Kanika Sanyal , Director, Geological Survey Of India (Retd)

As I was just leaving college and stepping into the professional world, I dreamt of being a successful
professional – giving my best to my career and squarely thinking of do’s and don’ts I need to abide by in
order to make my mark in the corporate world. Fast forward five years or so, there I was juggling
between my professional and personal life….fast forward few more years….things become tougher as I
become a “working mother”.

How do you balance your professional growth vis-à-vis your personal commitments? For one, your
biological clock is completely in contradiction to your career graph…the period when it would be best to
be highly focused on your work, take on additional responsibilities at workplace is exactly the same time
when your biological clock demands you to be equally, if not more focused on raising your kid, building
your “home” and take on more responsibilities at home. So how do you balance this act?

Be true to yourself – you cannot be a super-women! So do not shy away from seeking help. Your life-
partner, your extended support system are your life-line – embrace them! Be a strict disciplinarian to
yourself; be honest at your workplace…performing well! Last but not the least, even if it is for a
minuscule minute, cheat sometime for YOURSELF – for this will be your oxygen for the journey. Be
happy at your work, enjoy it as much as you enjoy your family – and it is this happiness that will give you
the magic pill to sail smoothly through both your professional and personal commitments. This has been
my mantra as I glide through this wonderful journey called “life”.

Saon Sen Nandi, PMP, Sr PM IBM

Work Life Balance?? Does it really exist? I cannot be a Super Mom, Super Wife, Super Daughter etc all at
once. Excelling at everything all at once can lead to stress and burn-out. I cannot be just this or just that.
I am the embodiment of all qualities put in.

There have been many times when guilt plagued in if I was sacrificing one for another and then I realized
there is no such thing as ideal work life balance as balance keeps shifting in our lives with our changing
priorities. Success means different to different individuals. A woman CEO is equally as successful as a
homemaker with 2 kids. So my 2 cents: Rethink your guilt, define your aspirations whether its raising
kids or being CEO or high flyer, end of the day – be true to yourself. Get educated, prepare yourself
financially. Be Confident and create a legacy

Be the person you want to be not what the society wants you to be. Be Yourself

Rekha Unni, PMP, ITIL, Ex Sr Manager