Working moms face tough choices when it comes to deciding whether to continue with their ambitious, pre-children career track full-time. Despite strides made to “break the glass ceiling” and offer women equal opportunities for advancement, there’s no question that taking time off for family reasons puts a kink in a normally smooth running, corporate career [...]

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Twice a year, I sit down to do a bit of strategic planning and it’s not work-related, it’s work/life-related. In my years as an HR professional, turned business owner, I’ve discovered that the principles of good business often translate into practical principles for a good life. So, every February and August, I sit down to [...]

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As if I don’t already have enough to keep me busy, I’m preparing to take the SPHR (Senior Professional in Human Resources) certification exam in December. Today, I refreshed my knowledge of the FMLA, or Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, which most every working mom should know about.
You may understand FMLA as a [...]

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With the girls back in school, it’s just me and ‘Lil Man until we figure out an alternative child care situation. His regular caregiver is out on medical leave longer than anticipated, so we can either wait (until November) or find someone new. At this moment, it feels better to just keep him home with [...]

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On the behest of a colleague, I started reading the book Women Don’t Ask and I’ve got to admit, it’s got me pretty riled up. I’ve read about 1/3 of the book so far, but got hung up on pages 48-49 that describes how women who commit to raising their children full-time or part-time are [...]

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“The call” rarely happens at a convenient time in your work day. You might be in the middle of working through a tough project. You might be stuck in bumper to bumper traffic trying to get to a client meeting. Or you might just be enjoying a rare, but needed, break.
Then the phone rings.
As you [...]

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How many times, in desperate frustration, have you asked your kids, husband, friend or co-worker/staff, “Are you listening to me?” Listening is the key to effective communication. Yet, after more than 18 years of education, spanning from Kindergarten to graduate school, I never took a single class on the most important communication tool of all [...]

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There’s no doubt about it — it’s becoming increasingly difficult for many working mothers to advance in the traditional corporate workplace. This is especially true in corporate cultures where putting in long hours at the office and maintaining adequate “face time” is a norm. As a working mother, you’re faced with the conflicting demands of [...]

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The question is simple, “What do you do?” Yet motherhood makes the answer complex. Before children, you probably responded to this question with your career profession, “I’m a HR Manager.” Once children enter the picture, your heart wants to lead with, “I’m a mother,” but your head advises you to lead with something perceived as [...]

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When you’ve been doing the same kind of work or working with the same employer for some time, it’s easy to become a teensy-weensy bit complacent. You know your job so well that you arrive to work on auto-pilot — going through the motions of your job tasks without much purpose, intent or motivation, which [...]

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