Welcome to your People Matters Summer Holiday Newsletter

Combining the months of July and August we get “Summer.” The summer season brings so much happiness as we see it as a season of warmth, sunshine, and outdoor adventures. From beach days to barbecues, summer has something to offer us all.

As we move towards this time of year, work schedules for many people will be changing too. Kids will have broken up from school, many of you will have holidays booked and to add to the excitement (or stress!) you are frantically trying to get your work in some sort of order to hand over to colleagues! When you know change is coming, it’s a good time to make some solid commitments about your plans, whether that be work related or personal. Establishing some goals and timelines for yourself in advance can give you something firm to hold onto as things around you start to rapidly change. This of course, includes your Learning and Development. You will be surprised how often those windows of opportunity will pop up during the summer. Learning starts with awareness, as to your readiness to learn and your openness to challenge.

Alex Chisolm quoted in Civil Service Weekly News - July Issue after the Civil Service Live Events “what difference will you make?” so this will be totally up to you.

If refresher courses are what you need to jog your memory, review or reinforce your knowledge and understanding, there is a host of e-learns on Civil Service Learning to help. See the next section for a list.

Re-energise your Learning & Development

Refresher courses are designed to take learners back to basics so you can review fundamentals you may have forgotten or upskill on the latest information you may be unaware of. Have a look at the 11 e-learns below that the GFA are offering on Civil Service Learning (CSL). These will help refresh your memory and keep your finance knowledge up to date.

If you need a further little nudge or are stuck for ideas check How to Upskill Your Summer! (linkedin.com), or have a go at some free courses at Summer of Learning - Free Courses in England or OpenLearn All our free courses - OpenLearn - Open University

Not only do you need to refresh your knowledge but don’t forget to revisit your goals. Have you updated your Personal Development Plan (PDP)? Does it still reflect the way you want to progress in both your career and in your home life? Do you need to re-focus? Regular reviews will ensure that you keep tabs on your goals and your activities and you’re not tempted to make your personal development a lower priority. So why not take the following steps to keep you on track:

1. Set aside some time to review the past few months. It’s no good trying to reflect meaningfully in just five minutes! Make sure you are relaxed to encourage quiet reflection.
2. Find your original plan, with your goals and planned activities. You need to know what you said you were going to do.
3. For each planned task or activity, how far have you progressed each one? is it in line with your plan? You need to be honest with yourself:
   1. How much did you do?
   2. Was it as much as you were expecting to achieve?
   3. Did you do something different, but more effective or vice versa?
   4. Are you happy that each goal still feels achievable?
   5. Have you identified more activities that might slow down your progress? What is going to get in your way?
   6. Are your timings still realistic?
4. Decide what you need to do next.
   1. Is it more of the same, or something different? Don’t procrastinate, that’s too easy 🙄
   2. Do you need to take more time, or find some external support, perhaps?

Revise your plan to set out your new activities. Refine your vision until it becomes crystal clear to you. Have your goals written down and placed within view and be sure to read them to yourself as often as possible – especially if you need to give yourself a huge pat on the back when you have achieved something!

Most of all be mindful, goals are not cast in stone and can be adjusted to fit new realities. We need to be kind to ourselves too and not pile on the pressure. A PDP is your chance to control your workload, your goals and your timescales. Watch the GFA’s “ 'What does a good PDP look like?'  If you find yours is a case of "That's Not My PDP - it's too (insert your own word)" (Fiona Watts – That’s Not My series of children’s books) - then you may need our help. A good plan provides focus, it allows you to make better decisions and it helps you get back on track when things go wrong.

For further inspiration revisit our Job Application Surgery for EO to SEO grades presentation. A session on top tips for writing job applications, with worked examples to help you make take that next step.

Career Framework – Skills Capture Tool

We hope you are already using the Finance Career Framework and finding it helpful to plan your development, identify learning opportunities and facilitate great conversations with your managers and mentors. In exciting news we are getting ready to launch the GFF Skills Capture Tool (SCT).

Launching in Autumn 2023, the SCT is the next phase to enhance capability and career development across GFF via the GFF Career Framework. It’s for everyone to use and will give you interactive skills focused experience to help plan your development.

You will access the tool online through the OneFinance portal, self-assessing your skills against the requirements of your role, based on your job family and grade.

You will receive personalised recommended learning via the GFA and signposts to other resources to help you grow, plan your development journey, and explore future career opportunities, with suggested job family matches and opportunities for you.

Your bespoke online dashboard can be used to support your development conversations with your line managers and mentors, identifying areas of focus to help you enhance your skills aligned with the job family skills, experience, and qualifications and will help you to shape your career journey planning.

We are currently in test phase with volunteers from the function and will be showcasing the platform demo at the GFF Conference in September, with the formal launch following in Autumn 2023. Watch this space for more information about how the SCT can support you and your development.

Come and Join Us

The Diversity, Inclusion and Wellbeing Delivery Group is still accepting standing members and we are particularly keen to have more representation of delegated grades from across the function. If you are interested in joining the delivery group or would like more information, please e-mail People@hmtreasury.gov.uk.

We currently have two live surveys related to the Diversity, Inclusion and Wellbeing Delivery Group to support with gaining insight about your experiences as members of the function and creating action plans to support your needs. Your engagement would be a significant help in supporting the group’s workstreams in delivering the most affective and relevant interventions in the DIW space:

• Strengthening Our Community Survey (civilservice.gov.uk)
• GFF Wellbeing Survey (civilservice.gov.uk)’

Action for Happiness Calendar - Altruistic August

Altruistic August: create a wave of kindness and share it with everyone. "Wherever there is a human being, there is a chance for kindness" – Lucius Annaeus Seneca: Ancient Philosopher. Each of our lives is supported by and through countless acts of kindness others have shown us and acts of kindness we will in turn show others. This August, set an intention to lift each other up and support each other in the hope you inspire others to do the same.

“There are five important things for living a successful and fulfilling life: “Never stop dreaming, never stop believing, never give up, never stop trying, and never stop learning.”― Roy T Bennett: US author and self-professed thought leader from his book: The Light in the Heart