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Anna Meller
Passionate about work-life balance
When I graduated and began working in HR the most important thing to me was making the most of career opportunities. I was ambitious and I believed in a level playing field. After all, the UK had equality legislation in place. It took a decade of high pressure roles – mostly in financial services – for my perspective to shift.
As my life circumstances changed I began thinking about having children. And slowly it dawned on me that for an ambitious woman combining work and family was not easy.
The pace of change has been so rapid it's easy to forget that thirty years ago employers offered very few flexible working arrangements and these were mainly aimed at mothers of young children. Generally known as 'family friendly' provisions; taking advantage of them was almost certainly a career limiting move.
So at the start of the 1990s I began championing flexible working. It’s been a learning journey that has culminated in my becoming one of the UK's leading work-life balance experts. Along the way I’ve conducted research; authored reports and books; spoken at events in the UK and abroad; and worked with a wide range of private and corporate clients.
Things are very different in 2022. Technology supports many of us to work any time and any place. It’s both a benefit that enables us to manage our work-life balance; and a risk that we become too available to our employers and end up overworking. And despite all the progress, I'm dismayed at how corporate cultures are still largely inflexible when it comes to senior level work: driving high potential women to compromise their careers.
Women move themselves onto the "mommy track", downgrade their jobs and suffer the "part-time pay penalty"; or they give up altogether.
Having experienced all this myself I know how soul destroying it can be. And it's not good for employers or the economy either. I also know it doesn't have to be this way when we take a grown up approach to work-life balance.
I now work with ambitious professional women who want to balance corporate career with family life; empowering them to make choices that work for them and their employers. Women get to progress hard won careers while their employers retain key talent. I also work with those same employers to upgrade culture, policies and practices so they fully support a healthy work-life balance for everyone.
My clients benefit from over thirty years of expertise; saving them time and costly mistakes.
Previous clients have praised my practical approach and my focus on generating customised solutions. I believe in evidence-based practice. After all, I've been around long enough to know what works.
If, like me, you're excited about rebalancing work - for yourself or perhaps for other people in your organisation - please get in touch and let's explore how we can work together.
"Anna is a skilled and experienced work-life balance practitioner. She's been a regular and much valued contributor to the BPS Work-Life Balance Working Group since its inception in 2009. Anna is always keen to extend her understanding of the psychological theory underpinning healthy work-life balance; and equally as passionate to apply her learning for the benefit of her clients." Professor Gail Kinman
Hire me to speak at your next event
Ove the years I’ve delivered talks to a wide range of audiences such as professional bodies, women’s networks, postgraduate students and the general public. I’m also an experienced conference speaker, both in the UK and internationally. Popular topics on which I currently speak include:
- #Upcycle Your Job and ReBalance Your Life
- What psychologists know about work-life balance and how it can help you improve yours
- Narrowing the Gender Pay Gap: eliminating the three biggest barriers to women's career progression in the corporate world
Interested? Get in touch and let’s discuss the details.
Anna's photo by Kate Cowdrey