Questions they asked Rohini

From the time Rohini Haldea decided to return to a full-time job in 2016, after a six-year personal break, it took her around nine months to be employed again. She joined VF Brands, an apparel retail company in Bengaluru.

Returning to work after a long break is tough; the interviews are tougher. In every job interview, she was asked similar questions: Why did you take a break? Are you sure about working again? Will you be able to travel? Will you be able to cope up?

“Breaking that barrier took some time. It hasn’t held me back after that,” she said.

Haldea, 47, is currently an assistant vice-president and marketing head at Lifestyle International, a retail company. That’s a national role.

Besides driving marketing initiatives for Lifestyle stores and the brand, she also tracks how the Indian consumer is changing. She heads a team where there are many women.

How exactly is she to work with? And where has she learnt the ropes on leadership?

Before her long break from work, Haldea worked with Hindustan Unilever, India’s largest fast-moving consumer goods company, for 11 years.

Learnings from the company may have helped. She has never been a big reader of books on leadership, she said. So, when it came to managing a team, she looked back at some of her male colleagues who were great managers and learnt from how they ran their teams and businesses.

There are a few basic rules she swears by—being accessible, maintaining an open door policy, and allowing freedom and flexibility to team members.

As the impact of the pandemic waned, most companies started calling their employees back to office. However, Haldea said she is still open to giving her team members flexibility of when and where they want to work from. “You have to trust people to do their jobs,” she said.

Women leaders, in general, do a better job at being available to their teams, she further said.

“I believe in hiring and training well. I tell my team what we need to achieve and want them to come back and tell me how it can be done. If you have to move to the next level, you need to develop your own skill sets and solve problems. It applies to women and men,” Haldea said.

As workplaces get more competitive, are there instances of missed opportunities as a woman?

Haldea says she can’t recall being denied an opportunity in any of the companies she worked in.

“I am sure it exists. For me, I have been to the best colleges (she completed her post-graduate diploma in management from the Indian Institute of Management-Bangalore) and started my career with Unilever. I made all the choices but I never felt I was held back because I am a woman,” she said.

(Contributed by Madhurima Nandy)