MOTHER OF 4 AND LEADER OF EVEN MORE

Hi, my name is Maria Elisa and I am part of Vitesco Technologies corporate family for about 15 years*. My main responsibility as a Quality Management System Team Leader is to lead and follow process improvement projects and coordinate the specialists. My team focuses on audit, documentation and logistic/quality claims management. Besides being a team leader, I am also a mother of Viola, Emma, Matteo and Filippo. The youngest, Filippo, was born eight months ago. After an official maternity leave, I have returned to Vitesco Technologies’ Pisa team. Let me share with you my challenges and experiences on work-life balance as a leader and mother. 

  • It is difficult to return to work after maternity leave. However, I felt comfortable with this choice, because I knew that there was an organization ready to support me, for example in working from home.​ The support of my team and manager encouraged me to integrate work and family into my professional path, to grow and to improve myself as a person and as a mother. I am in an excellent working environment at Vitesco Technologies, Italy – Pisa!

Maria's daily schedule is like a marathon!

In the morning, I wake up very early to do some housework and prepare breakfast (and sometimes lunch) for my children. Often, I like to take some time for me in the morning to plan the work activities and priorities. When the whole family wakes up, the calm and the silence is replaced by a cheerful and colorful chaos!

At 7.40 a.m. we are ready for a “school trip”. Afterwards, I go to the office or come back home if I’m working from home. Usually, my husband picks up the kids from school in the afternoon. During the working days we need an additional support (especially in the afternoon) to manage all the after-school activities (sports, music courses etc.) and we count on the help of our nanny.​

The dinnertime is one of our favorite parts of the day: we all get together and talk about our experiences from that day.​ Finally, when everyone has gone to bed, I take some time to organize the next day. It’s not so easy, I run all day and don’t have much time for myself in this period of my life, but I’m very happy and that’s enough for me.​

Work-life balance is an achievable goal

The project of a large family was the result of a gradual path: after the first three children, I tried to combine priorities between family and work. After five years, I felt ready again to take on new challenges, both in the work field and personally.

The arrival of Filippo was a wonderful event and a reason to find a new balance for me and my family. It is very challenging to achieve good results, especially with so many small generators of chaos (including two cats and 8 turtles).

I treat work and family in an integrated way. My career path, the training I continuously receive at work, helps me to develop skills, which I can apply also in my private life. Therefore, my husband and I are trying to optimize the organization of the various tasks and activities and coaching my children in problem-solving.

Seeing that my parents loved their work and put so much passion into it made me grow up in the awareness that I could succeed too. In my opinion it is important to act with determination to achieve your aims you believe in, to improve yourself constantly and to feel realized and satisfied.

*Vitesco Technologies was a division of Continental, before its spin-off in April 2021

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