Celebrating International Women’s Day at CH Video
March 6, 2020
06th March 2020 by CH
We’re celebrating this year’s International Women’s Day by looking at our team culture and how this helps all of us find that work/life balance, including those of us who have families.
There are 12 in-house people here at CH and a massive 75% of us are women, so we’re proud to have such a strong female presence in our ranks.
Traditionally, our industry is pretty diverse across all areas of production (client-side roles and filming, editing, motion graphics etc.)
Let’s be honest though, it can be a bit tough to be PC these days. There’s still a lot of businesses out there that often recruit and pay men higher than women and that’s what # EachforEqual is all about.
As we’re a small company, we advertise and recruit for new roles completely by ourselves. For us, it’s the only way to find the best person for the job. If they come to us with a family already or with a family on the cards, then that’s just how it is.
But if you have children then you know that it’s a big deal, in every sense. It’s no secret that it totally changes your life and when it comes to the everyday, there’s obviously maternity leave and potentially options for part time hours as well.
Within our team, both Emily and Laura are full time mums and work four days a week. Emily has a three-year-old daughter but is also our MD and founder, managing the whole business, producing videos and liaising with clients. Laura has a three and a half-year-old son and is one of our Client Director and Senior Producers, covering the full spectrum of video production.
Laura and Emily are our longest running employees and also the very first people to go on maternity leave, so it was a bit of a shock to the system.
For Emily, the transition was hard, as she had to completely disconnect from us and the day to day things that running a business demands of you.
“I did find it difficult, but I felt supported by the team and my mum (our other Founder) so I could focus my energies where they needed to be and switch off.” Emily explains. “I was able to achieve my personal goals before coming back to work, building time up slowly before returning, so I could strike my own personal and professional balance.”
For Laura, “Maternity leave was an amazing, wonderful, frustrating and crazy time! Part of my identity is my profession and I love my job. So naturally becoming a mum changed that. When coming back to work, you have to deal with the change of identity – being a member of staff and a mother.”
Balancing work and life are vital for anyone but not always as tricky as you think.
For women, our tips before you go on maternity leave are about making a solid plan before you leave so there’s a strong handover, booking ‘keeping in touch days’ with the team so you can feel in the know when you return to work, and don’t forget to stay positive and look forward to it!
Equally, when you come back, don’t rush in and feel flustered. Enjoy having another part of your life back again. Having a good nursery or option for childcare that’s flexible and trustworthy will help hugely. Plan for flexible hours if you can – perhaps a later start and later finish may be better. Try to work from home now and then and use technology to your advantage. Research new tools that make things easier for you and the rest of the team. There’s loads more out there than Skype. We communicate internally in various digital ways and use an online video reviewing platform to focus on our individual video projects to make things efficient, streamlined and on the whole, easier and quicker.
At CH, across the entire team, our culture and way of working means we’re not chained to our desks. Because our world is digital, we can focus on keeping our clients happy and enhancing their experience of working with us by staying online while working from home, travelling or anywhere where we can stay in contact.
Alongside working flexibly, knowing the strengths of our team and understanding how people work differently to others is massively beneficial.
So, whether you’re a woman or man, you have a family or not, flexible working and a trusting culture helps enormously. Happy home lives and a happier time at work. That’s what it’s all about.
To find out more about CH Video and our work, get in touch .
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