 As friends and colleagues in England go back into working from home lockdown again today (or for the first time), I wanted to share an article I wrote during the first lockdown on behalf of the Career Development Institute in Wales for Governors Cymru Wales. It is based on five years' experience of working digitally with private and corporate clients all round the UK and further afield, from my base in rural mid-Wales.
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The COVID_19 pandemic has given millions around the globe an unforeseen chance to pause and reflect on their lives. Many had already been feeling the quiet stirring of discontent with their lives - a feeling which has been heightened as millions already in work experience furloughing and redundancy as the UK pauses and values rebalance from "me" to "we". At the same time, a complete generation of young people are left worried and confused about their futures. So what's the solution?
Career Alchemy Founder and Lead Coach, Carolyn Parry was a recent guest on The New Normal, a podcast run by Chris Webb and Helen Armitage of Sheffield Hallam University. In the podcast, Carolyn talks about the way the world of work is necessarily changing, how society at large has been able to reconnect with what really matters to us and led us to appreciate how little we actually need to be happy. She talks about the shift in business values away from the intense spotlight on profit for shareholders towards a more balanced focus on solving the wicked problems the world faces and developing staff regardless of background, the new ways of working and how this creates a change to level up across the regions of the UK, how Coronavirus is speeding up trends towards automation, how retail is changing, and new opportunities within the gig economy, She highlights the democratisation of learning and how we should all be life long learners so we can protect our futures, how we will continue to see greater virtual collaboration and less competition across organisations: as we work together to solve common problems using new tools for distributed working which leads to the question of education and how it needs to repurpose itself to ensure our young people are able to find a clear why to help them create fulfilling and sustainable futures. You can listen to the podcast here:  Our Founder Director and Lead Coach, Carolyn Parry talks about why she chose to call her newly published TEDx talk "The Redundancy Vaccine" and explains why it is a vital topic that every professional needs to be aware of and take steps to guard against.
 The biggest question each individual faces is what to do with the gift of life they have been given – in other words: “How can I make the most of that gift so I can live to my fullest potential?” Yet it’s a question which we frequently steer away from or respond to by following the perceived safety of the norm.
 It's clear that faster is better if we want to to do simple things like catch a train or a plane, book a hotel, or look up something on Wikipedia, but when it comes to things which hold greater significance and meaning, faster will cause the wheels to overheat and come off.
 Come back to the first full working week of 2019.
How do you feel? Excited and full of hope at the prospect of a year full of meaning, impact and fulfilment? If that’s you, the chances are that you are probably a rising star at work who is intellectually and emotionally engaged in what you do, because it matters to you. In the UK, according to the latest Gallup stats[i], there are only 11% of UK workers who feel like you do. Well done on finding and living your career purpose.  Just over 15 years ago , I was thinking of doing exactly the same, so I did. If you are thinking of changing too, I hope my story helps you...
We had just come back from almost a month off in France - our annual lifesaving holiday required to recharge exhausted energy levels and spend much needed time reconnecting the family, so we were ready to do it all over again for another year.  It's that time again when we make decisions and set resolutions for the different parts of our life for the coming year.
If you are still working on yours, Robert Waldinger's recent Ted talk on the Harvard 75 year study of what it takes to live a good life provides a great perspective from which to work. Wishing you career happiness and health in 2016 from all at Career Alchemy. |
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