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Category: Personal Perspectives

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The first person to introduce me to the term work-life integration was Margaret Foti, president of AACR. I was on the Associate Member Council, which wanted to plan a Career Conversation on work-life balance at the upcoming Annual Meeting.

The term work-life integration resonates with me. That's because I never turn myself off from work, and work infiltrates every aspect of my life. Conversely, I never turn off my role as a mother, wife, foodie, exercise fan, ancestry buff, and career development blogger. My life certainly infiltrates my work.

Work on a laptop is integrated into home life.
It's impossible to avoid life infiltrating work and vice versa. Photo by Arnel Hasanovic
...continue reading "Work-life integration as an approach to work-life balance"

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Published on 4 Comments on Outsourcing: What problems can money fix?

Just as my son turned 5 months old, I returned to work. Immediately, I began to feel overwhelmed with the burden of running a household, caring for an infant, and showing up alert and coherent at work. I simply needed more time to get everything done and then sleep!

Everyone else around me seemed to be gracefully handling multiple children and working full-time in successful careers. Some new moms were even getting promotions at work soon after returning from maternity leave. I was still languishing in survival mode.

Women's work around the household like washing dirty dishes or cleaning the kitchen gets to have monetary value when outsourced.
Household work often takes up valuable time.
...continue reading "Outsourcing: What problems can money fix?"

For me, how to define success in my career is holistic. Individuals should have the freedom in how they define success in their careers in their own terms.
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Recently, I attended a seminar in which the topic of career development was raised. The speakers addressed the steps that a professional can take to be “successful” in his/her career. This idea of success in one's career made me think about what success means to me. I do not think that success is merely a promotion (although I will gladly accept a promotion!). For me, success in my career is much more holistic. I believe that individuals should have the freedom to define career success in their own terms. 

...continue reading "How I define success in my career"

Nurturing and evolving a culture to integrate the five key ingredients of total wellbeing will pay dividends in the long-run and will result in a thriving culture of high performance.
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Editorial note: It's impossible to leave the stresses of life (whether financial, relationship, health, etc.) at the door before entering your workplace each day. At Genentech over the last six years, I have been surrounded by caring co-workers and able to take advantage of many benefits (e.g., therapy/counseling, medical expert second opinion, mindfulness activities) so that I can bring my best self to work. Thus, I was absolutely thrilled that Nancy Vitale, the former senior vice president of human resources at Genentech, who was likely responsible for nurturing the workplace culture as well as for my employee benefits, agreed to share a guest post about her vision for wellbeing.

...continue reading "5 Ingredients for ‘Total Wellbeing’ that leaders should integrate into their teams – Guest Post"

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Editorial note: Pharma often features prominently in the U.S. political news, from Trump blaming pharma for the impeachment probe to lowering drug pricing. Medicines and health technologies play an integral role in health systems around the world. Thus, it's really important that we, professional women in pharma, play a role in advocacy. We can make an impact as experts on relevant topics as well as constituents affected by policies. But as busy professionals, how do we get involved with the causes we care about? I recently met Dr. JoEllen McBride, Advocacy Director of a local women in science group; I asked her to write this guest post to help women in pharma get started in advocacy.

...continue reading "Time for Advocacy: Getting started with advocacy for high impact – Guest post"