Practical Insights to enable worklife harmony
Practical Insights to enable worklife harmony
Ever thought of accomplishing everything and still not being overwhelmed by your work-life, or your social-life, or even take a backseat on your personal goals?
Seems impossible?
Well, let’s ask Nilakshi Salke, our enthusiastic QA Lead and Scrum Master, on how did she do it; and if she has any secret tips to share with us. Attending back-to-back calls, Nilakshi connects on, yet another Teams call and puts on her radiantly charming smile ready to talk to us.
Sharing everything she’s done in the bonus time that the pandemic rewarded us with, she talks about career ladder, smoothening daily routine while working remotely, how she’s empowering kids by germinating love for mother tongue, setting up book clubs, sparing time for her daughter or be it attending family events and the list just continues.
Yes. Quite an extensive list so far.
Nilakshi says,
“I have always been eager to do more. And somehow, it always seems to work out. Believe me, it’s not something I take for granted. But when you are surrounded by encouraging mentors, a supportive team, and a helpful family it’s not that difficult.”
Meet Nilakshi
Nilakshi joined Motifworks around 2021 as a QA Lead, handling projects on Data Science, Devops & Microservices ranging from different industries such as FinServ, Manufacturing, etc. From her early days as a Test Lead to taking on initiatives to empowering her team members, Nilakshi always lends a helping hand when need be.
As she reeled into the Motifworks environment, she gradually realized why everyone says this is one big family. Every call she attended, and every discussion she was a part of was to ease in new joiners, connect with fellow work-friends, and that’s something we just see it in families.
Nilakshi says, “For me, to bring in exploratory scenarios and test the code requirements was the easiest of all the responsibilities. But what I enjoyed the most was understanding the concerns of the trainees and develop a sustainable growth-enabled learning plans.”
As Nilakshi was dwelling on different initiatives, she realized a tutorial-based approach will not just enhance relevant skillset but it will also give new joiners and the trainees the opportunity to work on multiple projects. So, along with her fellow colleagues, Priyanka Nambiar and Anand Tare, they developed an in-house learning forum.
From inception to performance, everything was sought out for.
But she simply did not put her efforts only to resolve challenges at work.
While she was acing different initiatives, she underwent Scrum Master certification with flying colours. Just as she started putting the concepts and approaches in practice, Nilakshi was presented with an opportunity to work on a tedious project that needed a fresh perspective and well-planned structure. From building effective process adherence habits with her teams, to channelling right efforts for project deliveries, Nilakshi set the bar high.
Once she started working on it diligently, everyone appreciated her efforts, and she was requested to be working on three more projects. Putting the team at ease, planning internal development programs and clicking her days at work with fulfilment; it was all coming together.
As she quickly gives few instructions to her house help, Nilakshi further adds,
“It wasn’t as easy as it seems. But, making a list, and assigning the right priorities takes a load off of you. I had somewhere read that more the things you ought to remember, most of your mental energy is exhausted in focusing on those things. So, instead put all the insignificant things in the form or notes or lists so you can focus on important things and enhance your decision-making capability day by day. And I most certainly can say it really works.”
While everything was settling smoothly at work, Nilakshi was simultaneously accomplishing her self-assigned commitments in personal life.
Igniting the love of mother-tongue
Nilakshi recalls the 1st time she felt deeply about people not knowing much about Marathi, which is her mother tongue. Attending one of the felicitation programs Nilakshi observed a couple of trophies were swapped as the person giving out the trophies couldn’t read the right names from Marathi. And that’s how the idea of her Pet Project ‘Matrugandh’ came into existence.
Her brainchild, has now evolved into reading clubs, donating book collections to the less fortunate, and setting up online guidance workshops to ignite the love of mother tongue, Nilakshi is successfully expanding her passion project.
When we asked her how she manages her work-life and different initiatives from her personal interests she expresses, “The best way is to compartmentalize your worklife and personal life. And abide by it religiously. Most times people compromise with their personal things since its least accounted for. And that’s the first step of the failure in our personal accomplishments.”
As these initiatives started taking shape, Nilakshi gradually put everything in auto-mode and restarted her age-long dream of completing her Ph.D. Taking it up as yet another challenge, Nilakshi is all set to win over her QA learning initiatives, love for her reading & book clubs, and excel in her domain with one more feather to put in her heavy hat.
We wish Nilakshi all the best and everyone to build a self-nurturing environment that helps them fulfil their personal goals while acing their career milestones. Afterall worklife harmony is just a word unless we motivate each other to live by it.
