Insights Life after maternity leave!

After a year of maternity leave I am back at the Escape in a new role as Client Services Team Lead. Here’s a look to the year ahead for myself and my team, what I’ve learnt in 2020 and how it feels to be back at work during these extraordinary times.

On 7th September 2019 my son was born. The last year has been an amazing adventure, even with a 6 month lockdown to deal with. The year has certainly put us through our paces as new parents! You could say the transition to parenthood is a little like a new job, but, coming back to the Escape for me is a bit like coming back to my work family. I have however, come back to a part time role so have quickly put into practice some new skills to help make my working week as productive as possible and to get the very best out of both me and my team.

In a nutshell, it’s my job to ensure that we are servicing our clients in the best way possible - delivering projects on time and on budget, getting the very best from our team, and innovating all the time for new ideas and business opportunities within existing accounts. Above all of that, it is my job to ensure my team’s welfare - that they are happy, challenged and fulfilled in their roles - a real priority in these new ways of working.

The Client Services team at the Escape have a wealth of experience across private and public service sectors, hospitality, travel, leisure industries and more, and with some more recent joiners, so too have come some great new ideas. My main goal for the remainder of 2020 is to create more internal cohesion and empower my team to share learnings and best practice across our accounts. A new Monday meeting format where we discuss a trending topic in our industry each week, as well as our client run through, will enable us to generate more blog content and brainstorm new project ideas for our clients’ strategies.

Some of my team are currently undertaking training with Jenny Plant, learning new account management skills. We also have Jemma Dormer doing her Digital Project Management training - an exciting new phase for both them and the agency and we aim to use the learnings from this training to help streamline our processes and documentation across the team.

I’d say that becoming a mum has made me more confident and quicker at making good decisions on the spot. It has also taught me that it’s ok to ask for help and to be flexible. I have learnt how to manage my time very differently to be as productive as I can be - skills I am already using to ensure my three-day week is as full as possible and that my team feels supported and so far, so good! It’s great to be back in the business and I’m looking forward to what 2021 has in store for us.