Mom of the Month

Mom of the Month: Sairee Chahal

Mother to Four year old Vera

How did life change after the baby?

For the better. Amazing how a person can consume you so much but still not define you. Having a child allows you to emphasize your tone of appreciation for life and everything around you once more. Things once under-assumed come back in life size proportions – learning, curiosity, laughter, joy, simplicity. Having a baby is a chance to grow up once again

Being an entrepreneur takes a lot of commitment, hard work and most importantly time – how do you juggle work and home?

I think it is all related to personal motivation and interest. One sees value in doing something; one will go ahead and do it. Of course the call is what is one willing to give up.

I like to treat things with a bit of harmony – make little distinction between work and play, labor and leisure, learning and recreation, love and work. In a way it is always doing both. Very Zen like perhaps.

When do you think is the right time for moms to consider re-entering workforce after the maternity break?

There is no right time – whatever works for each person. Anywhere between 3 months and 5 years is a good time. However, do consider the fact that longer you stay away, harder the comeback  – you need more re-skilling, re-induction and you come back to a changed business world.

I always think of women who never had maternity leave more than 3 months – our choices allow us now to take that call. Whenever one can out together a support system and feel physically-mentally raring to go is a good time.

How do moms who need a 2^nd chance get in touch with you?

The program is meant for women who have taken a break from work and want to return or explore different ways to manage their work and life more effectively. The 7-step back-to-work program is meant for women exploring either a return to work, transitioning their present career to a more flexible and balanced career; or seeking clarity in the various professional directions they could explore. Fleximoms 2nd Chance is a 7-step program that handholds women restarting careers after a break. It enables women to make personal and professional choices that are relevant to their life. The program is designed to assess life situations, identify strengths and map next steps as well as access Fleximoms experts, tools and techniques to help achieve their goals.

Keeping in mind diverse roles women play, 2nd Chance addresses the fact that career comebacks typically involve choices like – entrepreneurial opportunities, flexible jobs, full time jobs, career changes, acquiring new skill sets, converting a hobby into a profession, becoming a business owner using franchising option or simply picking up a role most suited to one’s aspirations in mainstream corporate world.

Fleximoms Community is available offline and online – you can find us online – www.fleximoms.in; on facebook –www.facebook.com/fleximoms ; on twitter – @fleximoms or simply mail – team@fleximoms.in – one could call us at +91-11-46566958 / +91-9810105861 / +91-8527212354 / +91-9971714690

Birth Story of Fleximoms

Fleximoms is an active response to a need, which many of us and most around us have felt – that of constant pressures businesses face and the changing needs of women professionals.

Every week, Anita (Fleximoms Co-Founder) and I would get calls from several women, like us – women who have kids, women moving with spouses, women keeping lovely homes, women taking care of elderly, pets, and children, women taking breaks to pursue their other interests or women just tired of long corporate hauls.

Our biggest learning as entrepreneurs and as mothers came in form of harmony, synergy and fruitful co-existence between these two varied worlds. Fleximoms is a strong means to channelize that synergy. We needed to forge a sense of concurrence between a caregiver’s and the professional’s world. (I say caregiver because all mothers are caregivers but not all caregivers are mothers). The best part is there is scope for them to grow mutually.

Fleximoms came in as a response to three critical factors:

• Continuous and growing need of women professionals for flexibility in order to manage multiple roles and responsibilities. This is further accentuated by longer commutes, nuclear families, complex lifestyles and the need for a continuous second income.
• Second, the growing needs of businesses to stay ahead of projects and markets without sinking in large costs, huge overheads, and critical human resource scalability issues. There is a need out there for business to relook at innovative, newer models of resource engagement and work relationships in order to keep up with the changing business and organizational matrix.
• Thirdly, it is an appropriate time for India in terms of socio-economic transitions, since the joint family is almost no more and other support systems relatively under-developed.

Fleximoms was put in place to as a point to assist women professionals, businesses and related stakeholders to enhance their workflex readiness and seek relevant points of engagement and mutual growth.

Your vision (plans) for Fleximoms

Fleximoms has evolved. Our first point of call was to be a connecting point and from there we have moved on to becoming an organization that enables. We are now India’s only workflex readiness firm. Our reach and services are geared to address the growing flexibility needs of businesses and women.

Fleximoms is placed to become the reference point for women and work in India. There is an eco-system of resources, networking, opportunities, services, mentoring that is enabling women across India now to successfully find suitable work-life choices.

We are on our way to become India’s key reference point around women and work.

In your opinion, how easy/difficult it is for a woman to be successful both at work & at home

It is as easy or as hard as you want to make it. Ultimately irrespective whether you are a man or a woman, it is about choices and priorities. Women have multiple variables to manage whereas the universality of responsibility is dumped on man. Pick your battles carefully and go ahead.

Decide what color is your cloud!

What motivates you?

Learning, change, collaboration, creativity, conversations and action-ability.

What was the recent fun thing you did?

Everyday has many fun moments. More specifically, last evening – caught up with a friend over a drink.

Finally a note to all moms:

A child draws his inspiration and energy from the mother. If we as moms keep that in mind, we will never shy from investing in ourselves, getting out of our comfort zones and embracing positive change.

Let us give ourselves the power to create, lead, make, sculpt, change, build, acquire, dispose, envision and grow. There are seeds to be sown, ideas to be propagated, rewards to be harvested and future generations to mentor. Let us get to work!

This piece was originally published in Gurgaon moms