The What Goes Around Blog

The Next Generation of Work

Two free tickets available for CIPD student members to ‘London’s Skilled Future’

A Lucky Break

When I left school I was very fortunate in that one of my teachers (Mr Pope – technical drawing and graphical communication) introduced me to my first employer. I somehow managed to fumble my way through an interview and into the world of work as a trainee draughtsman. I learned a lot in this first job working among some supportive colleagues, both in the head office where I was based, and out on our many constructions sites too. All good things come to an end, and when I left this job, I had accumulated skills and experience beyond those I’d gained at school, and so found further employment. I was given a valuable hand from school into the world of work – many are not so fortunate.

In The Dark

Not long after starting my own business I did some voluntary work at a local school, helping kids with interview and CV preparation.My overriding memory of these experiences was how utterly unprepared nearly all the kids were. Prior to meeting me and other volunteers, pupils had apparently been doing some work on preparing a CV and getting ready for interviews. As the sessions unfolded I saw almost no evidence of this work as the volunteers and pupils clunked along together as best we could. I spoke with school staff after these sessions and the whole thing, right through to the involvement of us volunteers too, felt very much a last minute idea, ‘Oh look, some of our pupils are about to leave….should we be doing something…?’ I walked away from this experience feeling underwhelmed.

A New Direction – Taking Part

Fast forward to 2014, and I became aware of Learning to Work, a programme led by the CIPD to promote the role of employers in reducing youth unemployment.

The overall aim of the programme is to promote the business case for investing in the future workforce. We encourage HR professionals to offer a wide range of access routes into their organisations and ensure their recruitment and management practices are youth-friendly. We also promote direct contact with young people via two youth volunteering programmes, Steps Ahead Mentoring and Inspiring the Future.

Having been invited to a couple of events designed to showcase and promote this interesting work, it became clear to me that young people involved in the programme, including CIPD student members, are getting a lot from their participation. Through talking with these younger people, it also became clear to me that small businesses like mine also have a useful role to play. Big businesses are often the ones who offer support on programmes like this, and while they are surely useful, and have the added benefit of big, familiar names to help with the PR side of the scheme – they are not the only gig in town. When I explain my work to people at these events a lot of them say they would benefit from having access to smaller businesses like mine. With this in mind I joined Inspiring the Future (you can too if you like) and have supported the programme through attending and participating at events at local schools. The basic premise is not so different from that which I experienced when I first set up in business, but the whole Learning to Work programme benefits from a much more intentional approach. I think this programme is one of the most important activities currently being undertaken by the CIPD and I have just extended my involvement by signing up to offer student workplace placements in my business. Nothing grand, just working with me for a day or two – as a way of helping people explore what goes on in a small business like mine.

London’s Skilled Future – and your part in it

As part of this future focussed work, on March 16th, CIPD London are running a conference called London’s Skilled Future. The conference will tackle subjects like youth unemployment, low pay, the London economy, and much more besides. The CIPD has structured ticket pricing so as to appeal particularly to student members, and I encourage the CIPD student membership based in London to check the event out. If you are a current CIPD student member and would like to attend, but do not have the budget, then I may be able to help. I have purchased two student tickets to the event which I would like to give away. If you would like one, all you have to do is leave a comment on the blog, and I will draw two names from the hat on Friday 27th February. Thereafter I will contact the two winners so you can register, and make arrangements with the CIPD about which sessions you would like to attend. If you win one of these two tickets, I hope you have an excellent day at the conference. And if you are reading this and know someone who might benefit from this offer, please let them know – it is open to all current student CIPD members.

Obrigado Lisboa!

A visit to Lisbon for the 3gOffice 2015 Workplace Conference

Second Time Around

This week I took my second trip to the city of Lisbon. Last time I visited as a tourist to take in a MotoGP race with two good friends, this time I was a guest of 3g Office at their 2015 Lisbon Workplace Conference. I flew over late afternoon on the Wednesday and took a couple of hours to reacquaint myself with the Bairro Alto, a beautiful historic district in the heart of Lisbon.

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Stranger On The Town

I was joined on Thursday morning by bright sunshine and Andy Swann, who was also in town for the conference.

We enjoyed a lovely walk together before heading over to Microsoft’s new Lisbon offices for the conference. When we jumped onto the subway it was a warm sunny day, but by the time we got off it was hammering down with rain. Andy and I splashed around in unfamiliar territory getting absolutely soaked. We eventually found a taxi and jumped in, dripping wet. The driver took us to Microsoft, all of 150 metres round the corner! Sardines are a famous Portuguese dish, and Andy and I arrived into the conference hall as wet as any sardine swimming in the neighbouring river Tajo. It was a fun, albeit unusual way to make an entrance.

An Environment for People to Thrive

Andy spoke about the workplace as an environment for people to thrive. He was good humoured and positive in his delivery and took a nice gentle swipe at a few things too, including the mot du jour – ‘disruption’. I’m sure he will share thoughts on his session somewhere soon, for now – here are a few snapshots (sorry my iPhone camera really doesn’t cope in poor light).

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Most of the event was presented in Spanish, and I found it oddly interesting trying to interpret what was going on purely from the visual aids.

The Art and Soul of Better Work

I was on last and spoke about the art and soul of better work. The session was based on my work using art as a way of exploring how to make improvements in what we do, and some personal experiences related to the importance and power of getting to know one another better. As I practice this work more and more (to date almost 500 people have experienced Art for Work’s Sake), I am finding it a little easier to talk about it with sincerity and confidence. I still get nervous, and on reflection I could have shown more examples of real work done by real people in this space, and the session was really well received. Here are the visual aids I used – and if you click the link you will find some of my speaker notes and links to further relevant resources too.

The art and soul of better work – Created with Haiku Deck, presentation software that inspires

After Hours

With the formal proceedings over everyone enjoyed some time to talk over a few drinks, before a few of us headed out to dinner. Prior to our departure I was fortunate to speak with Nelson Paciencia who kindly allowed me to share his notes from my session with you.

Nelson is a talented artist – I encourage you to take a look at his work.

Dinner was great fun, and afterwards our hosts insisted we carry on into the night. We had a lovely evening and before I knew it, and with far too little sleep, I was back at the airport heading home.

To close – here is a very short video showing a few Lisbon highlights…

…and a lovely conference sketchnote, by Maria.

Experiments in Wellbeing – Alcohol

It was not my intention for this story to be the next public step of my wellbeing experiment, but I feel like it needs telling, so here we go.

A Creature of Habit

I like a drink. Occasionally I’ll have a drink every day during a week, though I usually go without for two or three days. Regularly, two bottles of red wine are on the weekly shopping list, and regularly they get emptied down my throat during the course of the week. Regularly. I’d guess this is a habit I’ve develop and persisted with for almost thirty years. It feels odd to write this and in so doing, look back over such a long trail of empty bottles.

I’ve never considered myself to be dependant on alcohol in any way, and yet clearly, I drink pretty often. Data published in The Guardian in 2013 indicates that men in my age group are putting away over 30 units of alcohol a week, and around 75% of men exceed the daily recommended amount. It’s always struck me as odd that something so intoxicating has a ‘recommended daily amount’ – we don’t apply such parameters to ecstasy, LSD or cannabis, despite them all apparently being much less harmful than alcohol. I know there’s the small matter of legal v illegal, but still…

I digress. Back to the booze, and in particular, the habit. As part of my wellbeing experiment, I decided to do without alcohol for a while. We met friends for a belated Christmas get together in a country pub on January 3rd, Carole drove and I had a few drinks. After lunch had finished, so had my relationship with alcohol, for a few weeks at least. I decided to see if I could get to the end of January without having another drink. I was nervous about this part of my experiment – how would I, as a regular drinker, cope with no wine or beer?

On The Wagon

It feels a bit odd to write and tell you that I found the next four weeks easy. For some reason I worried that taking away something which had become such a frequent part of my life would be tough. It wasn’t and I am grateful for that. Aside from the ease with which I abstained – what else did I learn?

1 – I’m sleeping better – and there is an unsubstantiated rumour circulating this house that the frequency and volume of snoring has drastically reduced.

2 – I’m waking better – I still feel tired after a late night, but once I’ve woken up I’m sharper, ready to go.

3 – I don’t appear to have lost any weight – I can’t prove this because our scales are broken, but the mirror doesn’t lie and my current chubbiness persists.

4 – Social events often centre around alcohol. I decided I would not seek to avoid going out as part of this experiment, and when I did go out – I observed that almost everyone I was with was having a drink. At one event I went to – an enjoyable one I hasten to add, I was offered a beer on arrival, which I refused. Then wine – politely declined that too. Next came Fanta. Seriously? No thanks. Finally we got to water – yay! It came in the teensiest glass I’ve ever seen and I spent the rest of the time perfecting my pour, drink, pour, drink technique.

Back in the Saddle?

As night follows day, so February 1st follows January 31st – and in 2015, February 1st was SuperBowl Sunday. My team – the Seattle Seahawks were in the game as defending champions, competing against the New England Patriots. We lost the match in the dying seconds, I don’t want to talk about it. Prior to the game – I had convinced myself that beer would be a required accompaniment, and I had ordered in some Nanny State beer, brewed by Brewdog. This beer is marketed as alcohol free although it contains 0.5% alcohol by volume. Over the course of the three hour game, I think I drank four bottles. It tasted OK and it made me want to pee a lot!

The following night Carole and I went to Koko in London to see Prince play live at a secret charity gig. The gig was excellent, and I had a bottle of Heineken. One was enough, particularly at £5.50 ($8.40) a bottle. On Thursday I poured myself a glass of wine and I had two or three sips and threw the rest away – I wasn’t enjoying it. On Saturday night I had a bottle of beer.

What happens next? I’m not sure, but I’ve learned a lot from this period of absence and I’m really enjoying my current approach to drinking. If you’ve tried a similar experiment recently, I’d love to know how you found it/are finding it?