Career Change

Many women experience a change in their career after having children. Typically, a career change is embarked upon to create more of a balance between work and family.

Our career change story this week is about Sheralyn Guy who transformed her corporate career to business owner of an HR Services business called HRhelp.

Sheralyn Guy, HRhelp

What do you do?
I am co-director and owner of a business called HRhelp. HRhelp is dedicated to providing affordable, practical and effective human resource services to small to medium sized businesses.  We set up the business four years ago because we saw there was a real lack of practical and effective human resource support for smaller businesses that couldn’t afford their own, dedicated HR team. We provide the full range of HR services that any HR corporate department would – anything from employment contracts to exit interviews.

When and why did you start your own business?
I decided to leave the corporate world because I wanted to spend more time with my kids and my partner at the beach. I had tried to secure a more flexible job within the corporate world, but as I was in management at the time I found it hard to find a role at the same level that would give me the flexibility to work anything less than full time, Monday to Friday hours. This, combined with my natural entrepreneurial instinct, made it an attractive idea to start my own business.

What are the Top 5 tips you would share with others on starting and running your own business?

1. Effectively outsource. When you start your own business you suddenly become a jack-of-all-trades – but you need to be careful not to become master of none. Especially the one “trade” you have built your business around. As you no longer have the budget of a big corporation at your disposal, you need to perform a lot of your own functions. But some well-spent dollars outsourcing key areas of your business can mean you spend your time where you are most effective.  Some areas of cost-effective outsourcing I recommend are – bookkeeping, copywriting and, of course, human resources.

2. Delegate well. When you do decide to enlist the help of others make sure you delegate well. Often, when you reach the point where you finally succumb to letting go of a task, you are so busy that you just flick the task/job off to the closest person or organisation that will take it. Trust me, I’ve learnt this the hard way, unless you delegate tasks well you will end up with less time and more of a mess than what you started with. Delegating well includes:

• selecting the right person or organisation for the task – make sure they have both the “skill and will” to perform the job you have asked them to do.
• setting clear expectations about what you want done and checking the expectations are understood.
• making sure the person/company taking on the work has all the knowledge and information they need to perform the task well.
• making time to answer questions or quality check the work in its early stages.
• providing effective feedback on performance.
• praising and rewarding great work.

3. Prioritise. Decide on the top priorities that are going to help you achieve your business goals and allocate time to each. I defined my Top 5 business activities – they were finances, marketing/business development, customer satisfaction, HRhelp people development and HRhelp product development. I then allocated a specific day to think about, plan and action that given priority. For example, Monday was finance day, Tuesday was marketing/business development day.  I didn’t necessarily work on it all day, but I gave it my initial focus for the day.  This approach ensured I gave attention to the key areas I had identified as being important for my business to achieve its goals. It also ensured I didn’t shy away from the areas I was less comfortable with and helped me to manage my time more effectively, as I would pay all the invoices on finance day and update the cashflow projections at the same time.

4. Have a plan.  Setting goals for my business and having a plan has been key to keeping me focused and on track (most of the time). Having a clear plan has also helped when random opportunities have presented themselves. I use the plan to help guide me on whether the opportunity is in line with my business goals. A lot of time can be wasted following opportunities just because they appear, rather than because they are consistent with your business direction.


5. Get off the dance floor and onto the balcony. Make sure you always take time out from the day-to-day running of your business to get a “helicopter” view of where you are.  Some consultants I used to work with referred to this as “getting off the dance floor and onto the balcony”, because from the balcony you get a clear view of everything. There are several ways to do this – you might have a regular coaching session with someone who can facilitate you to take this view of your business, you might take a group approach, such as the DIY group marketing planning sessions offered by Marketing Angels, or my preferred option, a planning weekend away, with no kids (well, ok, just the baby).

What are some of the challenges you face as a working parent and how do you overcome them?

Keeping a clear division between my business and home life. When you are running your own business, especially if it’s from home, the lines between your personal and business life can easily become blurred. This can happen in many ways, including with your time, your space and your finances. I have found that, for the benefit of the family and the business, it is best to create boundaries between them, even if there are only virtual boundaries. For example, I only work between certain hours, I only answer the phone if the kids are not there, I have a separate in-tray, filing system and space set aside at home for when I work from there, and top of my current To Do list is to organise a debit card for business-only expenses.

It is hard to say no when a customer wants me to work beyond my designated hours – say for an early morning meeting or to turnaround a quick response that might mean working on the weekend. To overcome this I try to work for like-minded people and I find this often means working with and for other parents. I also establish up front with my clients when I am available – most of them are very understanding. Finally, I try to have help around me so that if I need to, there are reliable people I can delegate work to, to ensure I am not overloaded.

Do you have any tips on how to successfully balance work and family?

Make efficient decisions. Starting out in my own business I initially found that when an opportunity presented itself I would “um and ah” about the decision for too long. Being undecided meant that I wasted time thinking about the decision and on occasion it meant I lost the opportunity because I took too long to decide. I also found it difficult to say no, partially because it is in my nature to please people, and also because I thought that saying no might mean I would lose not only this opportunity but the potential for work in the future. It wasn’t till I was knee-deep in the additional work that I would go, ‘I wish I hadn’t taken this on’.  I have found that by having clear goals, having a plan and priorities, I can predefine the opportunities I will say ‘yes’ to and the ones I will say ‘no’ to. By knowing in advance what you will and won’t accept, you can make a quick decision and get on with things.

Set up or join a support group.  A problem shared is a problem halved – this is certainly true in my experience. I found a few other women in the same situation as me and we catch up every couple of months. We discuss both life and business challenges, and are able to learn from each other’s experiences. It has also proved to be a good source of information and ideas about everything from childcare to marketing contacts and on occasion has even led to introductions for new business.

My final piece of advise is to embrace technology to help you make use of your committed time. I take the ferry into the city as opposed to driving so that I can write my business articles on the way in on my laptop. I use an i-phone so that I can check information while I am waiting for a doctors appointment.  But just remember, those virtual boundaries you have created …. Make sure the i-phone gets turned of at the family bbq!

For more information on HRhelp contact +61 2 8006 1280 or email gethelp@hrhelp.com.au or go online at www.hrhelp.com.au

Danielle Stein Fairhurst, Plum Solutions

What do you do?
I run www.PlumSolutions.com.au, a Sydney-based consultancy specialising in training and consulting in Financial Modelling.

Where were you at in your career when you starting having children?
I was a senior Financial Analyst in the Financial Services industry when I had my first child.  I was probably heading down a fairly corporate path at that time.

Did you career goals and aspirations remain the same?
No, I think they’ve changed.  I always wanted to run my own business, but I was earning good money and doing well in my corporate career, so I don’t think I would have made the break to start the business had I not been provided with the catalyst of having children.
 
What made you leave the workforce and start your own business?
I did several subjects of my MBA while I was at home on maternity leave, but I really missed my job.  I certainly didn’t enjoy being at home, but I wasn’t prepared to go back to work full-time in my previous capacity once I’d had my son.  After six months, I went back part-time, but found that I really got side-lined and wasn’t given the same opportunities as before.  I was treated very differently and I quickly realised that my career wasn’t going anywhere as a part-timer.  My employer did try to accommodate me, but it’s very hard to work on interesting, high-profile and demanding projects when you’re not in on certain days, or need to leave at 5.30pm.

As soon as I got pregnant with my daughter, five years ago, I decided to leave and start my own consulting business when I was about five months pregnant.  I figured I would have to take some time off anyway, so it was the perfect time to do it.  I structured the business purely around my skill-set, which was Financial Modelling and Analysis.  I didn’t get much work the first year really - I worked on a few short term projects, but it was pretty hard to get consulting work when you’re pregnant, or can only work certain days.  On one project I used to disappear into the car to express breast-milk three times a day!

For the first couple of years I was constantly struggling with the balance between clients wanting me full-time on a project (whether the project really needed me to be full-time or not!) – and having no work at all.  I would do maybe three months on and then a month off, but I often didn’t get the month off and I found it was defeating the purpose of setting up the business in the first place.  I was often working full-time, which I never wanted to do at all, and I was so busy that I didn’t have the time to grow the business.  I realised that although the money was great, I just wasn’t achieving my personal goals with the business, so about two years ago I made another break.  I decided I wasn’t doing any more big projects, and branched into training as well as consulting.  

Since then, I’ve never looked back.  I work much more at home, and less on client sites which works much better for school hours.  I’ve never worked so hard in all my life, but I absolutely love it.  The cashflow is a lot “lumpier” of course than when I was consulting, and I’ve had lots of hair-raising experiences, but wouldn’t have it any other way.  I am often invited to run Financial Modelling seminars overseas – I don’t always go, but have been doing about four trips a year.  I try to coincide the trip with school holidays if I can manage it, so the kids can spend time with their Grandparents in Queensland.  I recently managed to incorporate a session in Dubai with a holiday for the whole family.  Their Dad is amazing, he’s got a pretty full-on job as an architect, but manages to do pickups and take time off if I’m away or on a project.

Many women struggle with progressing their careers after having children. How did you do it?
I guess I just wasn’t prepared to make that choice between advancing my career and being around for my kids.  I think that the business has really allowed me to do both.  I’ve made a very distinct choice to “create my own ideal job” and it’s a lot harder than it looks!

Do you work flexibly?
Absolutely.  I find it hard to distinguish between my work time and personal time, which is something I probably need to be a bit more disciplined about.  I’m often doing kid stuff during the day, and find I’m working out of hours – it just depends what is happening that day.

Where to now?
Bigger and better!  I really don’t have time to do everything so I need to hire more staff (virtual of course!) to help me grow.  The online courses are really taking off now, which helps to leverage my time, and deliver good quality training to more people at a fraction of the cost.