Women Say These 5 Benefits Help Them Achieve Work-Life Balance

“Our parental leave policy provided me with 16 weeks paid time to recover from giving birth and to bond with my son, Skyler,” says Vice President of People Operations Jaclyn Pomerantz.  

Pomerantz oversees the team responsible for the full employee lifecycle at VTS, including the company’s diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programming and initiatives. She says that after 16 weeks on leave with her son, she was able to gradually transition back to work full-time, working three days a week for four weeks. “This period was invaluable to me as I was able to get back into the swing of things and catch up on what I missed while still being able to spend time with my son.”

Her advice to new parents about this tricky transition period is to set boundaries early on. “If you don’t set them yourself, no one else is going to do it for you!” she says. “My manager and I have a weekly check in on how I am doing with my return to work and setting boundaries for myself. This has allowed me to prioritize balancing work and spending time with my son.”

For engineering manager Priyanka Harish, balance has been struck through investing in herself—something she’s able to do using VTS’s Be Curious and Learn stipend, which allots $1,500 per year to each employee to spend on activities that promote wellness and personal growth.

“Thanks to the Be Curious and Learn stipend, I have been able to invest in myself by subscribing to a customizable and personalized yoga class plan from Down Dog (an app),” she says. “This daily routine helps me kickstart my day on a positive note and stay energized throughout. Additionally, the stipend has encouraged me to enroll in online courses to enhance my personal skills, such as playing the flute, and professional skills, such as managing with intent.”

Focusing on herself has also helped Harish reflect more thoughtfully on how she integrates work and life and what she can improve in the future. “Looking back, I realize now just how crucial it is to be intentional, plan ahead, and prioritize effectively in order to achieve a healthy work-life balance,” she says. “In the past, I wish I had been more aware of this fact. However, over time, I have learned to reflect on each week, assess what went well and what didn't, and then use that knowledge to plan more effectively for the future. By doing this, I have been able to create a healthier balance between my work and personal life, and I feel much happier and fulfilled as a result.” 

Maryna Voitenko is a senior software engineer on one of VTS’ core product teams. She recently returned from maternity leave, but while she was excited to get back to work, Voitenko says leaving her child wasn’t easy. “Having spent a few months looking after a newborn every minute of the day, I was up for a challenge finding time to focus on something else, aka my work, while also always having my baby on my mind,” she says. 

The company’s return-to-work policy helped her find balance. “VTS allows for primary caregivers to work three days a week for up to four weeks following the return from the leave,” Voitenko says. “This flexible return-to-work benefit made a huge difference and gave me the time to adjust mentally.”

Beyond company benefits, Voitenko says curating her to-do list properly helps her maintain the balance she’s achieved. “If the task takes a short time and brings benefits, do it right away instead of adding it to the to-do list,” she says. “I love my to-do list but sometimes it fills up with a lot of little tasks that can be done in 5–10 minutes each but instead take up space within my mental capacity. Instead, if you complete those small tasks right away, you free up your mental capacity for bigger, more involved tasks.”

“Quite recently I was transferred from our office in Toronto, Canada, to London, United Kingdom,” says Allison Wolff, a customer success manager working on the team that serves VTS’s portfolio clients in the UK, Europe, Canada, and the United Arab Emirates. 

The majority of her team remained in North America, except for a colleague in Australia. The distributed nature of the team made staying connected seem near impossible at first—in theory, someone would need to be up in the middle of the night in order for them to be on the same call—but not insurmountable with VTS’s flexible culture. “To accommodate this challenge, our manager has set up alternating recurring morning and afternoon meetings so that either myself or our Australia-based colleague can join,” Wolff says. “The entire team has been incredibly flexible in rearranging their schedules, and I appreciate the effort my manager has made to try and keep us all in the loop and connected.”

Such care around employees’ time is something that particularly resonates with Wolff, as she’s become very intentional about drawing a line between work and life. “With life and work melting together with more of us working from home, it’s so easy to roll out of bed and start working even hours before you’re meant to,” she says. “It’s important to have a routine and carve out time for yourself, otherwise the next thing you know, you’re forgetting to take care of yourself, your back hurts, and it’s already 5 p.m.” 

Work-life balance can be different for everyone, and it can change over time, says Mariam Javed, an analytics engineer who supports building, developing, and maintaining the analytics layer of VTS’s data environment. “For me, work-life balance means feeling fulfilled within my career while also having the space to prioritize my faith, family, and overall well-being,” Javed says. “I can wholeheartedly say that thanks to VTS, I am able to unapologetically focus on all aspects of my life.”

That safety Javed feels is largely due to the support she’s received in starting an employee resource group (ERG) for Muslims at VTS a few months after joining the company. “My colleague and I decided to start [the group], and we were floored by the support and encouragement we received from everyone to do so,” she says. 

Earlier this year, when Muslims around the world celebrated Ramadan, the Muslims at VTS ERG celebrated by hosting themed events, such as a company-wide fast-a-thon and an Eid lunch. “By hosting these events and being given the space to create an ERG and openly discuss our faith, I finally felt like such an important part of my life didn’t have to be hidden from my colleagues or brushed under the rug at work,” Javed says.

That sense of belonging has long been a pillar in how Javed achieves work-life balance. “There have been periods in my life where I knew I needed to find a better equilibrium between personal and professional pursuits but I didn’t know where to start,” she says. “Through the support from family, friends, managers, colleagues, therapists, and other resources (it really takes a community!) I realized I needed to take things in small bite-sized chunks and focus on one thing at a time. What is it that’s causing me to be unbalanced? What do I want to work toward? What is a small step I can take now to help create new habits and shift the way I’m thinking and feeling daily?”