Hello PPMA members and friends

Last Thursday, the 9 December, we held our first face to face event for over 2 years to celebrate the achievements of the winners of the last 2 years PPMA Excellence in People Management Awards 2020 and 2021. We also want to thank our fantastic sponsors for continuing to support us during the last 2 years – Penna, Crown Commercial Service, Matrix SCM, Oracle, Tribepad, Commercial Services Group, Salary Finance, Greater.Jobs, Osborne Thomas  Hammond Clarke, Real World Group, Rainmaker Group, The MJ Innerprofessional  Working Families #letsimproveworkplacewellbeing, and last but not least Rest Less for hosting the event.

The event was held at London Scottish House, in London and was a fitting venue to host our first get together and celebrate, here are some photos from the day and a video will be following shortly. A full list of award winners can be found on our website.

Apart from having a get together and celebrate with our winners, sponsors, friends and colleagues we also wanted to say a special thankyou and farewell to a couple of PPMA stalwarts for many years.

Stuart Elrick, who we said a fond farewell to in 2018 at our annual conference, held in Newcastle, with a lifetime achievement award, but who came back in 2020 to help with the Treasurer and Secretary roles in the PPMA. Stuart has finally said enough is enough, and is formally retiring. He has been a fantastic contributor and supporter of the PPMA for over 40 years and the association cannot thank him enough for everything he has done. Happy retirement Stuart.

The other key member of the PPMA that we need to say au revoir to is Leatham Green, our Executive Director.

I met Leatham when I joined the PPMA board back in 2012 and I was immediately struck by this incredibly dynamic, flamboyant and yet sensible, pragmatic and extremely switched on individual. Leatham was promoting the virtues of social media to PPMA board members long before it became as prolific as it has. He has managed the PPMA talent programmes – Peer into the Future, Rising Star, Apprentice and Ones to Watch – so brilliantly and through their unique structure furthered the careers of so many HR professionals over many years. He truly is a warm, fun, generous and inspiring person.

In the last few years, when Leatham left his Director of HR/ OD role at Orbis he set up his Mindful HR Centre and at the same time agreed to become PPMA part time Executive Director responsible for handling not just our talent programmes, but our commercial sponsors and interests and our awards and conference programmes. It is no exaggeration to say that without Leatham’s drive, enthusiasm, work ethic and commercial savviness that the PPMA would probably not have survived the last 2 years of the Covid 19 pandemic.

Leatham has now secured himself a fantastic new role with Oracle which will take up all his time, but he will remain a friend and advocate of the PPMA. So, it is an honour to give Leatham a coveted and well-earned PPMA Lifetime Achievement Award. Thank you Leatham for all that you have done for the PPMA over many years.

The PPMA without Leatham Green and Stuart Elrick

Although we have lost two great supporters and contributors to the PPMA we have put in place arrangements to cover the work that they did. I will be covering the Honorary Treasurer & Secretary role, and in May after our conference it will be easier to do this because I hand over the Presidency to Gordon McFarlane.

Julie Biggs has been a board member for many years and has supported Leatham on our talent programmes and she will be managing our talent and awards programmes going forward.

Some of you will remember Barry Pirie, past PPMA president who was a long serving board member as well. He knows the workings of the association well and he has agreed to take over the commercial duties that Leatham undertook.  Therefore, together with our office admin, experienced finance officer and strategic management board we consider that the arrangements we have in place readily compensate for the loss of Leatham and Stuart.

We look forward to working with all of our members, sponsors, supporters and friends for many years to come.

Steve Davies, PPMA President

Hello PPMA members and friends

What a fantastic two days we have enjoyed this week, coaching and learning with apprentices from across the UK public sector sharing their stories, talents and the legacy they wish to be known for. This was the first time we have run this event virtually and it was great to see all the delegates making the most of the opportunity, including the virtual networking.

It truly was inspiring to spend time with such talented, committed, caring and passionate individuals, and to see the growth in their confidence and skills following the first development day and the personal coaching they received over recent weeks.

Colleagues from PPMA and Crown Commercial Service, our sponsor for this event, provided coaching for the delegates before participants were invited to share their personal brand statement, gratitude challenge and legacy statement.  We were all so impressed by the passion and commitment shared by every apprentice as they showed and their willingness and ability to be open about their personal stories; it was a wonderful experience and a privilege to listen to them and be part of this unique development programme.

The talent of the apprentices was extremely impressive and it was so hard to choose who would go forward to the final event on 28th May 2021.

However we are delighted to announce that our finalists for the PPMA Apprentice of the Year 2021 are:

• Owain Herring from Doncaster Council
• Cintia Jankoczi from London Borough of Barking and Dagenham
• Molly Edlin from London Borough of Islington
• Becky Neville from The Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames
• Megan Mitchell from Northumberland County Council
• Mattise Artingstall from Tameside Council
• Lotte Newman from Surrey County Council

Congratulations to all of the apprentices who took part this year.  You are all wonderful ambassadors for your organisations and the future of public service.

Leatham Green

PPMA Interim Executive Director

Hello PPMA members and friends

In this special edition of the PPMA Sparkle and Learn Webinars, Leatham Green interviews US based Leadership Coach, Author and Educator, Joie Seldon. Joie is one one of this year’s Peer into the Future speakers and will be sharing her fascinating insights with our brilliant cohort in April. In this interview she talks about about Emotions at Work and her own programme that she has developed, called the Joie programme.

We are delighted to announce that all PPMA Members can sign up for the next Emotions at Work programme that Joie Mentions, which starts on the 19th April and receive a very valuable discount for this and other programmes. Find out more on our website.

Hello Members and Friends

Despite all of the challenges and disruption we have experienced in the past year, it was a wonderful and joyful occasion to launch this year’s Peer into the Future and bring something familiar in these times of uncertainty.

However, the title of the programme is all that is familiar this year. Thanks to the support of our current Peer winners – Emily Drake and Shawnna Gleeson – we have revamped the content of the programme to reflect the delivery is on line, which has been HR’s central role in steering organisations through the pandemic. It also means that we can use the opportunity of virtual delivery to reach out to international knowledge expertise, as well as tapping into the best across all sectors of public service and beyond in the UK.

The programme was over-subscribed – but don’t be too upset if you missed out, as due to the popularity of the event, we will be running a second 2021 cohort in the autumn.

On this cohort we have 16 of the best HR/OD professionals from across the UK’s public services and the learning journey got off to a flying start on 25^th February 2021 with an introduction from PPMA’s current President, Steve Davies.

The focus of this first module was all about ‘Let’s Talk You’ and a Past President of PPMA and founder of The HR Lounge, Angela O Connor shared her valuable insights into the importance of personal and professional branding alongside the power and impact of story telling and the ability of leaders to be able to powerfully sell ideas into an organisation. Future modules of the programme will explore how this can be achieved in more detail!

We were delighted to welcome for the first time Jill Parker, Assistant Director HR/Communications from Doncaster Council. She shared her own career journey with our participants and gave a fabulous exploration about the joys, challenges and responsibilities in leading from the top. Jill and her HR team at Doncaster are the first recipient’s of PPMAs Gold Award which was awarded to the team last year for their world class work they have delivered for their local apprenticeship community. Jill is one of the public sector’s leading HR professionals and influencer and inspired us all with openness and generosity in sharing her expertise and experience.

The first module concluded with a seminar delivered by the awesome Alistair Williams from Creation Consultancy and a long time partner of PPMA. Alistair shared a unique methodology for developing a ‘personal statement’ that will enable of cohort of aspiring HRD’s to really stand out from the crowd. Last year, 9 out of the 15 delegates secured a senior promotion, so we look forward to even greater success this year!

So the journey is now up and running and watch out for a series of vlogs that our participants will be posting over coming weeks focused on the importance of ‘gratitude giving’. This will run through into April. Also in April we will be joined by a leading advocate of gratitude in leadership, Kevin Monroe from This Extra Ordinary Life and Kevin will be delivering a live session from his base in the US – bringing our first international flavour to our Peer programme.

Next up though will be a wonderful opportunity to work with Professor Beverley Alimo-Metcalfe, Founder of The Real World Group and sharing all things leadership – what a treat that will be for us all.

Leatham Green

PPMA Interim Executive Director and Chief Executive at the Mindful HR Centre

Amanda Harcus is Director of HR and OD at London Borough of Tower Hamlets and in January 2020 she got the shocking news that she has cancer of the bladder. In this blog post she shares her story with PPMA Executive Director, Leatham Green.

During the lockdown Amanda has been raising funds to repay the £18,000 cost of her treatment back to the NHS. She has also committed to raising awareness of this incredibly common, but little know about or researched form of cancer and if you would like to donate to this very worthwhile cause here’s a link to Amanda’s Giving page  https://giving.fightbladdercancer.co.uk/pf/amandas-wee-challenge

We send Amanda all our very best wishes.

Hello PPMA friends

Staying safe, remaining calm and reducing stress levels is crucial to everyone’s health and well being, especially in these difficult times. Leatham Green, Chief Executive of the Mindful HR Centre and also PPMA Executive Director, explains just how important touch is in achieving this.

“Touch is vital to all human beings and can be one of the quickest ways to both reboot and calm down the nervous system, restoring a sense of safety and wellness.

Experiencing warm, safe touch encourages the release of oxytocin, the hormone of safety and trust, the brain’s direct and immediate antidote to the stress hormone cortisol. This is vital to us all for a healthy and happy life.

There are many people living alone during this time of practicing social isolation, and the lack of connection with another human being (or animal) can be stressful and the cause of anxiety and depression. So this practice that will invite our minds to focus on warm, safe touch to help manage any anxiety or distress we are sensing, and evoke a memory of feeling calm, connected, safe and cared about to deepen that feeling of ease.

Why Hand on the Heart Works

When you breathe deeply into the heart centre, you’re activating the calming parasympathetic branch of the nervous system. When you breathe in a sense of ease or safety or kindness, you’re restoring conditions which allows your heart to respond more flexibly to stress.

When you remember a moment of feeling safe and loved and cherished with someone, you’re activating the release of oxytocin, the brain’s antidote to the stress hormone cortisol. You may actually feel the warm glow of the oxytocin as it washes through your body, coming to a sense of safety, trust, and calm.

Practice: The Hand on Heart Exercise

This is one of the most powerful tools we have to restore a sense of calm and equilibrium. Anchored in mindfulness and self-compassion, it is powerful enough to calm down a panic attack in less than a minute, or prevent the stress response from even happening in the first place.

1. Place your hand on your heart. Breathe gently, softly, and deeply into the area of your heart. If you wish, breathe in a sense of ease or safety or goodness into this heart centre.
2. Remember one moment when you felt safe, loved, and cherished by another human being. Don’t try to recall the entire relationship, just one moment. This could be a partner, a child, a friend, teacher, spiritual figure, or even a pet.
3. As you remember this moment of feeling safe, loved, and cherished, let yourself experience the feelings of that moment. Let the sensations wash through your body. Let yourself stay with these feelings for twenty to thirty seconds. Notice any deepening in a visceral sense of ease and safety.
4. Repeat this practice many times a day at first to strengthen the neural circuitry that remembers this pattern. If you practice five times a day for a full week, you will train your brain in this new response to any difficult moment. Then you can repeat it any time you need to, any time at all. It’s portable equilibrium.”

Leatham Green, Chief Executive of the Mindful HR Centre and PPMA Executive Director

Hello PPMA members and friends

The last in our series of posts from the Apprentices of the Year and One to Watch winners is our 2019 Rising Star, Hayley Camporese. Hayley is HR Consultant at Onesource (London Borough’s of Havering & Newham).

“I have always thought that I am a confident individual, that is able to say her piece in team meetings, guide Directors through procedures and sing horrendously on a karaoke …… but after the first day with the fabulous Leatham Green and coaches Stuart Paviour and Julie Biggs, I realised that there was much more I needed to, and did, learn about my own self-confidence and presenting in front of an audience of peers.

The first day started with all of the finalists getting to know each other and then going through relaxation techniques to help whilst presenting under pressure…..throughout the day we were provided with scenario’s and exercises both individually and in groups, to push ourselves out of our comfort zones and hone our presentation skills. We were given immediate feedback and mentoring from the coaches, which helped immensely with the next stage. It did not feel like a competition at all – everyone was very supportive to each other, and we were encouraged and coached continuously by the team.

Presenting my legacy was quite an emotional experience, it was based around work/life balance and how we sometimes lose ourselves in our work, and miss out on precious time with family and also making time for yourself. I felt very empowered when I stood up and spoke, I forgot about the judges and just gave it my all, bringing in all of the techniques that I had learnt over the 2 days I had been there. All of the other finalists were amazing….. and it was a shock when my name was called as the winner, it really must have been a close competition!

It was an outstanding experience and has made me realise the abilities I have, given me a great sense of belief in myself and also an awareness of my body language – I stand and walk taller now, and it has really made a difference in my confidence and delivery.”

We wish Hayley a fantastic year and look forward to seeing her and the other programme winners at the PPMA Conference, at The Hilton Metropole Birmingham, on 14^th to 16^th May. If you’d like to come along and celebrate with us all, then book your place here.

Hello PPMA members and friends

We’ve recently heard from Kirsten Moore and Daniel John our joint Apprentices of The Year about what it was like to enter the competition. This week, Steven Berry our ‘One to Watch’ winner tells us about his experience.

“When I was invited to attend the PPMA Rising Star / One to Watch competition I didn’t really know what to expect, although I knew it would be an opportunity to challenge myself and support my personal development.

The two day event started with a masterclass in techniques to support our success. There were then some quite daunting challenges, such as having to answer quick-fire moral dilemma questions in front of the panel of judges and fellow colleagues. However, there were also some fun team challenges that enabled us to get to know each other better and work together towards a common goal.

As the competition progressed, I was able to practice the techniques that we had been shown to help me to cope under pressure and perform better. The final challenge was to present our ‘personal legacy’ to the judges and the group. Considering my personal legacy really helped me to understand myself better. My legacy focused on the fact that I am naturally a quiet, introverted person, but how over time I have learned to push myself out of my comfort zone, which is when I find I perform at my best, and have the most positive impact on others. Speaking about something so personal in front of the rest of the group was surprisingly emotional but extremely rewarding. It was also great to hear everyone else’s legacies, which were equally personal and inspiring.

At the end of the competition I was shocked to be named the winner of the One to Watch category. What was more important though was the connections that I made and the increased confidence and belief in myself that I brought back with me.”

Steven is a HR/OD Specialist at Manchester City Council, leading on workforce health and wellbeing. He has worked within the HR/OD service at the CIty Council for 15 months, prior to which he worked within the voluntary sector in substance misuse services. He has supported with the development and ongoing implementation of the City Council’s Employee Health and Wellbeing Strategy, which aims to create an environment where employees are empowered to be their best selves at work.

We wish Steven an amazing year and you can meet him at the PPMA Conference, at The Hilton Metropole Birmingham, on 14^th to 16^th May, where we look forward to celebrating with him and all of our other talent programme winners. If you’d like to join us, then book your place here.

Dear PPMA colleagues and friends

As we approach conference, our President Karen Grave shares her hopes and expectations for this year’s annual conference.

“Hi everyone, I’m so looking forward to seeing as many of you as possible in Birmingham. As ever in the run up to conference the team is both excited and anxious to make sure that we haven’t forgotten anything critical! Putting on annual conference is a huge undertaking and before I share my thoughts, I want to say an enormous thank you to Leatham, Kim, Grace and everyone else who makes it possible for us to put this event on. Our focus will be on making sure you have a fantastic conference experience!

I try to take stock of the progress we have made before each of our events. Last year in Newcastle was a real thrill and it was a very personal opportunity for me to return to the place I studied at Uni. This year, I’m looking forward to conference with the same enthusiasm but for a number of reasons:

• We’ve got a great theme ‘Don’t Worry, Be Happy’ ,that always makes me smile just when I think about it. But there is a lot more to this than a happy slogan. We have a real opportunity to increase our learning about the impact of leadership, employee engagement, wellbeing and productivity on our workforce colleagues. I’m fascinated about this link because I think it we can collectively crack this with our colleagues, it will really help us harness all of the potential of our people. It’s good for them but more importantly it’s critical for the citizens we serve. Each year we see more and more external pressure on our ability to deliver services. Finances are a constant challenge. However in my view, there is an increasing and potentially more divisive threat. Our politics are increasingly fragile and it’s harder to see policy proposals being developed that help those of us in public services really address our most pressing challenges. So to overcome this, we need to take our destiny in our own hands – enabling and empowering our people isn’t just a nice to consider – it’s an imperative for all of us. I can’t wait to hear from John, Maria, Beverley, Jamil and Shonette and of course, all of our amazing fringe session speakers. We’re going to learn a lot.
• We’ll be welcoming existing and new members to conference. It’s fantastic to meet old friends again and find out what’s happened since we last met in Newcastle. But it’s always really brilliant to welcome new members to the PPMA family. We’ll be saying a big hello to all of them – but in particular, I’m really chuffed to welcome HR & OD colleagues from all Greater Manchester Local Authorities. They are going to add a fascinating dimension to our community and I hope we will learn a lot from their DevoManc experiences in particular.
• This is also our first national event since our restructure last year. We’ve come a long way since then and we now have appointments to all of our key posts. Our first Extended Board meeting at the end of March was so exciting. Our new Theme Leads and our Regional Chairs brought energy, new ideas and a commitment to our collective future that left me feeling really hopeful.  You will have the opportunity to meet Board colleagues over the 3 days, so please make sure you take the time to meet them. Every single Board member undertakes their role on a voluntary basis – that is a huge commitment but they do it because of a collective belief in the value of PPMA. If you are interested in getting involved in the running of the association please come and talk to one of us. Board members will have a different colour lanyard to conference attendees, so we will all be easy to spot!
• We’ll have plenty of exciting things to say about our membership offering too. I am very proud of the breadth and depth of our offering – it compares very well to other professional associations. Our ability to offering a compelling value proposition depends on the great support from our existing and new sponsors, the commitment of our Board members and all of your ongoing support. You should never underestimate the amount of work that goes into volunteering for Board roles, so I encourage all of you to take advantage of what we offer.
• And last but not least, we will be announcing the winners of our PPMA Excellence in People Management Awards programme. I love this part of Gala Dinner – it’s always brilliant to recognise the efforts of our winners and everyone who takes part. With the pressures of work, it’s sometimes easy to forget that there is a huge amount of innovative, creative and inspiring work being done day in and day out across public service HR & OD. Gala Dinner is our opportunity to reflect on that, enjoy good food and great company and kick back and have fun.

And talking about fun, we’re really looking forward to our Rock the Kasbah theme…….

I can’t wait to see you soon!”

Hello PPMA members and friends

Last week our joint Apprentice of the Year Winner 2019, Kirsten Moore shared with us her experience of taking part in the competition and this week we hear from her inspirational fellow winner, Daniel John. Daniel is from South Gloucestershire Council and here is his story:

“I decided to enter the PPMA Apprentice of the Year as the idea of testing my abilities against other apprentices in a competitive environment greatly appealed to me as well as development opportunities to develop my career. I was thrilled to be shortlisted along with 15 other great apprentices from across the country and was looking forward to the challenge.

The morning of the first day was focused around training and development. The emphasis was on developing the core being of who we are as individuals and how to increase our confidence to help us get our message across. We learned different techniques for public speaking such as how to breathe and how to hold people’s attention using silence. I found the morning challenging as it took me out of my comfort zone, although when the competition started I felt confident in applying what I had learned in the morning.

During the afternoon of day one we had to perform a team activity that focused on time forecasting, individually answer questions from the judges, and deliver a short pitch on our legacy presentation that we had to deliver the next day.

The second day consisted of an individual task in which we had to show how well we could cope under pressure and the legacy presentations. For my presentation, I talked about how my passion for improving conditions for people with Autism has been shaped by my life story. My apprenticeship finishes in July and I would like to gain a permanent job which would enable me to make a difference for people with Autism.

Overall, I found the experience wonderfully enjoyable and precious. I found everyone involved to be so friendly and inspiring and I will cherish the memories for the rest of my life.”

Daniel John, PPMA Joint Apprentice of the Year 2019

We hope that Daniel has an amazing year and we look forward to celebrating with him and all of our other talent programme winners at this year’s PPMA Conference, which will be held at The Hilton Metropole Birmingham, on 14^th to 16^th May. If you’d like to join us, then book your place here.