The search for family-friendly employers is nearly over

Are you doing your best at work? Do you take each and every job you do as an opportunity to shine, or are you like the majority of us and just get on with it? At some stage or other in our professional lives, fall into a rut of our own choosing because we reach a point where we are comfortable with our lot. This comfort is a balance between getting the job done, making sure you get paid and not letting obnoxious individuals get to us.

I am a recovering journalist. There I said it. I had been in the TV news business for around 12 years and had taken redundancy once, given birth to my second child and three months later came back to work for another company on a freelance basis around 2/3 days a week. At the same time, I set up my company Talent Network knowing that the 2/3 days a wk gig wasn’t going to last long. I was right. It lasted about 9 months. I needed to pay the bills …

Helen Lindop has launched an e-book for new mums who want to start their own businesses. The book is called ‘Business Plus Baby: Ten things you need to know if you’re starting a business and have a baby’.
Many new mums expect to return to work after their maternity leave ends, but find their priorities change once their baby arrives. Faced with a choice of working full-time, taking a poorly-paid part time job or giving up work altogether, many are starting businesses instead.

I had to return to work when babies were 5 months old, and I wanted to carry on breastfeeding. My eldest, (now 8), went onto solids at 14 weeks (WHO guidelines were different then), so I was only feeding about 4 times a day when he was 5 months old.