My Bare Necessities (Desi Career Woman Edition)
Although a lovely ode to the beautiful song in The Jungle Book, Mowgli and Baloo is not what my article is about today. Today, I’d like to talk about what I consider the “bare necessities” as a Desi Career Woman in 2023 after 3 years of work experience.
The ability to manage my own time. Micromanagement is much more common than we know, and even in this generation, I have worked for managers that asked for 5-minute logs at the end of the workday. While I love an open channel of communication with my manager, I also would love to keep the length of my bathroom visit to myself if possible. In order to promote managing time independently, the focus should be on completing the job and its responsibilities. Is the employee on time with deadlines? Are they often late to meetings? Let’s look at time management from a bigger picture of doing their job rather than watching a clock.
Frequent check-ins and honest feedback. As a 27-year-old, I’m not a fragile child who cannot take critical feedback in my stride. Even if it hurts, it is most often true and necessary for me to hear. Feedback gives me an opportunity to act on it and execute, to prove that I can take both positive and negative feedback and turn it into a fruitful outcome.
Vacation Time! Not everybody fits the same size shoe, and the same applies to PTO or vacation. You’d be shocked to know that I once had to provide a Wikipedia article on Durga Puja (a 9-day Hindu Holiday) to take 2 days off to fly home. Why? Because I was told that “The holiday season is in December.” Yes, in the terms of Thanksgiving and Christmas, it may be, but it is important to remember that your employees can come from all cultures and religions, and giving them the flexibility should be as simple as the Freedom of Religion.
Paid Parental Leave. This sounds so basic but it is sadly not. Being that the US Government does not mandate a minimum Paid Parental Leave, it leaves it in the hands of each company to protect the rights of their employees. The “standard” protocol across a majority of companies has always been to maximize your PTO, followed by taking off 3 months of FMLA or as the employee handbook dictates. There are also similar rules in those same handbooks that differentiate parental leave as maternity and paternity, and reduce the amount of leave for an adoption versus a childbirth. In 2023, when we should be asking people their preferred pronouns when we first meet them, we still have companies that don’t provide ample Paid Parental Leave. When leaving my first two jobs, this was one of my “North Stars”. Even though I was nowhere close to motherhood myself, I saw women around me pregnant, stressing about money, and concerned about coming back to work too quickly. Those same women lived with the fear of postpartum depression in the office and how it might affect their work.
ERGs. Employee Resource Groups are one of my favorite parts of working in a company. These resource groups are a forum for networking and furthering yourself, becoming an integral part of company culture, and sometimes, shaping the company’s future. Joining PACCAR’s Diversity Council (an elected position) and joining the Women’s Network at almost every company I’ve been at have been some of my favorite parts of those companies, and where I have met some of my favorite people as well.
Promotions! This one is so obvious, but I need a company where talent is promoted rather than suffocated. It becomes such a red flag when a quick LinkedIn Search will show me more than a few employees who have been in stagnant positions for 5-10 years or even more. I know some can argue that not everybody should be promoted regularly, but I think 1 promotion in 5 years can be inspired with the right coaching and growth opportunities within the company.
