Hello PPMA friends

Over the years the PPMA Talent Programmes have recognised the potential of some very talented people and this year is no exception. We asked all of this year’s winners to give us their answers to the 4 questions below and we start the series with recently crowned ‘One to Watch’ 2020 winner Mae Wilson. Mae is Senior HR & OD Officer from Doncaster Council.

• What has been the biggest lesson you have learnt from your career so far?

My main lesson so far is that I should never feel like I have ‘learnt everything’ and that I am at any given moment a complete finished product. This has been a hard truth to accept, but it has been necessary to my personal growth and evolution. By being open to change and new information I have been able to tackle my own limitations but also learn new tricks and insights about my skills and abilities.

• If you were Chief Executive of your organisation what one change would you make (in an ideal world!)

One of the biggest challenges I can see our workforce facing, and something I would like to address if I was Chief Exec – especially in a place that had really only just started to recover from the effects of flooding when the pandemic hit – would be putting things in place to support compassion fatigue and mental burnout.

We are already a supportive organisation, but I would love to put things in place to show our workforce how universally valued their work is to the organisation AND the public we serve. Culturally we are beginning to recognise that all roles within the public sector have the potential to be mentally taxing, but often this is either not recognised in the individual officers themselves, or people are perceived as ‘too far from the action’ to need support. Therefore similar to the work introduced by ‘Schwartz Rounds’ in the clinical field I would like to encourage people from all roles to discuss the emotional and social aspects of working in public service.

• What one superpower would you like to have to make people’s lives better.

I love superheroes! But with this love comes the knowledge that with great power comes great responsibility. Therefore I would like to have the power to make sure that every piece of bread anyone would ever want to toast, will always toast to their perfect requirements. My rationale behind this power is that not only would it help cut down on potential food waste, but I believe it would also help start people’s day so much better – as with the threat of a burned breakfast completely out of the picture, people can instead focus on larger more complex problems facing our world and their day in the comforting knowledge that at least a small part of their morning has been taken care of.

• If you were able to give your 18 year old self one piece of advice today what would it be?

The ‘mantra’ I would share with my 18 year old self, is one that has recently really helped me respond to my inner critic, and given wind to my inner cheerleader. It is from the fantastically quotable Terry Pratchett – “coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.”

I have come to appreciate that life is not lived in a straight line of binary choices, it is messy and complex and you can only make the best decisions based on the information you have available to you at the time. You will however never really have to start from nothing. This has not only helped me feel more comfortable about the perceived risks I have taken in my life, and in my career, but it is also a phrase I come back to when I need to remind myself how far I have come, and that even if it doesn’t feel like it, there is always some thing to be gained from the things I have experienced – good or ill. I have come to appreciate that at the same moment I am both the oldest and youngest version of myself and here lies the realisation that I not only have a long way to go into an exciting unknown future, but it is with the benefit of a range of experience at my disposal.

Mae Wilson, Senior HR & OD Officer, Doncaster Council and PPMA One to Watch 2020

We’d like to thank Mae for her frank and interesting replies to our 4 questions and they’re certainly food for thought. Over the coming weeks we’ll be posting the answers to these questions from all of our Talent Programme winners, so watch out for those. Applications for the 2021 cohorts will be opening soon – so if you’d like more information then contact Grace at admin@ppma.org.uk.

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.

I hope you are enjoying this wonderful weather.  Last week the team was at the first of the two Public Sector Show conferences this year.  And, we had help from our friends at JobsGoPublic and The Guardian.

I had the pleasure of opening this year’s Workforce and Leadership workstream and invited all the days delagtes to attend as many sessions as they could – the attendance for all of the workstream sessions throughout the day was great. And this workstream is proving to be incredibly popular for our PSS colleagues overall.

Our second sessions were on Recruitment and Retention challenges caused by Brexit and the other very much focusing on Multigenerational Workforces. We had a couple of special guests in that session. Matt Burrows, our One to Watch 2018 joined us and Liv Harris, from Jobsgopublic joined us to walk participants through the research we jointly did and published at Annual Conference. We had some really interesting questions from the audience, particularly around the research. We’ll be looking at scoping the next part of that research over the summer, so if you have any comments you would like to make please let us know.

In the afternoon, I attended a panel chaired by Peter Cheese, CEO of CIPD.  I was was joined by our good friend Graeme McDonald, MD of SOLACE, the wonderful Deb McKenzie, People Director at Public Health England and Jessica Studdert from NLGN who brought a fascinating dimension to the discussion. I have had the pleasure of speaking on PSS panels with Graeme and Deb before, and I always enjoy the discussion with them and talking about the changes that have happened since our previous sessions.

One of the aims of our 4 way MOU is to find ways to help HR & OD colleagues gain experience across public sector as a whole. We already have some fantastic role models who have already demonstrated their capacity to do this. Deb is one of them and we’ll be hearing more from her in an upcoming article in People Management.

Grace also joined us for the day and manned our stand. We were chuffed with the number of people who came to visit and over 30 people signed up for our newsletter and we hope to see some more new members. Matt chipped in during the day and we also had support from the wonderful Stuart McKeown from The Guardian. We’re very grateful for our sponsors and their help in events like this.

It’s on to Manchester now for our next PSS. It’s being held on 20^th November at Manchester Central so keep your diary free!  Leatham and I will be with the PSS team over the next couple of weeks to work on our contribution to the day. So more to come in the next months.

Hello PPMA members and friends

This is the third in our series of posts from participants of the HR Rising Star and The One to Watch competition and we hear from Matthew Burrows, HR Support Assistant, Serco Local & Regional Government. Matthew is our One to Watch winner and he answers some questions for us on his experience.

Who you are and what you do:
I currently spend most of my time working in operational HR. It is mainly an administrative function, overseeing the new starters, changes to contract and leavers processes. I also have a hand in administrating the recruitment process for local authority schools, and do some work on KPI reporting from our HRIS.

Why do you work in public service:
I work for the service provider to Lincolnshire County Council. I decided to make this move as Lincolnshire County Council wanted to be a forerunner for this business model, and I was excited to be part of a period of change, especially as a new company had won the contract a few months before I joined. It is challenging but rewarding, and allows me to work closely with colleagues for the betterment of public services.

How did you feel about participating in Rising Stars/ The One to Watch:
Spending two days in a room with so many exciting, dedicated and talented people was the best professional experience of my life. The great coaching, coupled with the insight of my peers and the judges has completely refreshed my perspective. The growth that occurred over two days in Leeds cannot be understated and I continue to be grateful for the opportunities I have to express myself professionally.

What did you learn about yourself from participating in the event:
The most important thing I learned about myself was that I belong in that arena. Finding the confidence and courage to deliver on that kind of stage was a big deal for me, because I wasn’t sure if I had “it”. Now I know that I do have “it”, and that confidence has already been a springboard to success.

Matthew Burrows, HR Support Assistant, Serco Local & Regional Government and PPMA The One to Watch winner