Women Returning Back to Work

My Family Member Returning Back To Work

As the pandemic started, I had the opportunity to work closely with a family member in her journey of returning back to work. She had been out of the workforce for 20 years. There were a lot of job sites and posting online of returning to work, yet where to start was a struggle. We found that there was no site to bridge the gap. We were looking for a helpful guide for women returning back to work.

“Am I relevant in the Industry? What skills do I need? As an non-native English speaker, do I need to learn how to speak English to operate? I do not know anything about computers.” These are some of the common questions that she asked. The same have been echoed by other such returnees to work that I came in touch with.

Getting Started

Together we began by first discovering who she was, out of her marriage and kids. We started with discovering her style and buying a laptop for her. We worked together on buying a work desk for her, buying books which will be relevant to her and sharing resources about various courses on the Internet. She worked hard to grasp the nuances and slowly I could see her change. Her mentality and personality had transformed from a stay at home parent to someone ready for work.

Returnships – The Idea

I realized that when figuring out what to do next, people need each step to be laid out to them. This led to the blooming of the idea of the returnships website. My website nabanitadefoundation.com takes a stay at home mom and manufactures a working women mindset out of it. Out of work for 20 years? No problem. Go into the website with 0 experience. Start from basic skills like English and computer science and go all the way upto being ready for returnships.

I realized from this experience of returning back to work, that the resources required for the various stages needed to be organized in a systematic manner. So, the Nabanita De Foundation return-to-work initiative takes you through the various stages that we had experienced. Start right from self discovery, to discovering stories of other women who went back to work. From learning basic skills like social media, how to, online presence and all the way upto finding returnships. I wanted the Nabanita De Foundation return-to-work initiative to be a one stop shop to help people who have been away from work for long get back to work.

Returnships – The Platform

Returnships on the the Nabanita De Foundation return-to-work initiative is built in a course like fashion and is entirely free at this moment. Let me run you through each of the stages that makes women ready to go back to work.

Discovery

The process starts with helping women by discovering stories of other women who have managed to go back to work. This lets them feel less helpless and they feel motivated. You can refer to training videos to help you find your style and voice and discover who you are. It helps you pick a good work from home setup. The website even guides you on the kind of computer you would like to buy. It also shares groups where you can find women just like you.

Training

The next stage involves training. While the domain specific training varies significantly by context and background, there are some common elements that are universal. These include something as basic as English and computer science trainings. This follows by getting to know internet, social media and Google and Microsoft Office suite better. It further lets you discover places where you could possibly find free online degrees. It even lets you know about the training materials on various relevant paths that you can get started on, with absolutely no degree.

Marketing

After having a little bit more idea on what you want to do, the next stage deals with learning how to market yourself. How do you tell your story and build an online presence and resume? The typical marketing practices involve showcasing experience, rather than skills. And this can be challenging for women returning back to work.

Resources

Once you have come this far, you need the right resources. These resources could deal with therapy and life/career coach resources, that can help you if you are still feeling stuck. By now, you are ready to go back to work. You have everything set up and you are ready to march ahead. You can find a repository of returnship opportunities from renowned companies. These companies are exclusively hiring women returning to work after a long haul in their career.

A collaborative effort

So, basically this completes the typical journey of a woman returning back to work from the standpoint of the individual. However, this is not an initiative that can succeed in a silo. I would honestly love to collaborate with various organizations who are working in this domain. I have a one stop shop for all the resources a person would possibly need to get back to work. If you are someone, who is already working in the space, feel free to reach out to me. I will be happy to list your website link. If you are a mentor, life coach, therapist or career coach, I would love to enlist you as a go-to mentor. If you are a recruiter and looking for hiring women for returnships, please feel free to send me those job postings and I will link it to my site.

I am delighted to have received amazing responses and feedback from hundreds of women who are trying to get back to work and have found my site very resourceful. Many mentors have signed up to help out and I have spoken to many organizations who are willing to collaborate. I definitely feel very excited in this space and look forward to the amount of good work that is waiting ahead.

Let us all join hands and help women in returning back to work!

About The Author

Nabanita De is passionate about solving world challenges though tech and entrepreneurship and has won several hackathons. Her work on fake news detection (FiB) has been recognized world wide. She was invited to Forbes 30 Under 30 summit by the Forbes Team and has won several awards from organizations such as Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Uber, Harvard, MIT and Qualcomm.

Nabanita has a Masters in Computer Science from UMass Amherst and is currently working as a Software Engineer. She was recently crowned Miss India Emerald City Washington 2020-21 by Ampowering.

nabanitadefoundation.com is a non-profit initiative of Nabanita De.