Full Circle

Photo by Daniel Lloyd Blunk-Fernández on Unsplash

I recently took voluntary redundancy and amicably parted company with my employer.

This, however, was not my first rodeo. In a career of some 40 years, I have taken redundancy three times, for various reasons, none of which reflected fault on my part, but which were business, organisational or personal adjustments. 

The challenge for any individual in these circumstances is to try not to take it personally, nor  consider it as the end of one’s career, but to see beyond the immediate impacts, to look for the opportunities they may present, rather than to catastrophise and assume the worst.

“Easy for you to say”, I hear you say; “you were only part-time - and weren’t you going to retire soon anyway?”

Yes, I was. But I have learned over the years to adopt a more philosophical attitude to these challenges.

 

I recognise here that I write from a more privileged position than many - I was approaching voluntary ‘active retirement’ next year, (and had previously indicated so to my employer); I was already working part-time and flexibly, mostly from home; our children are grown up and our mortgage will be paid off by the end of this year. And I had some potential consultancy work already lined up. Many of my colleagues were not in such a reasonably comfortable place.

So I reflected that maybe it was time for me to step aside, to embrace my ‘active retirement’ as a freelance consultant/coach/mentor, whilst facing into a personally eventful 2025, with significant birthdays, anniversaries and other family celebrations ahead. In so doing, I took myself out of the pool for what my job was to become, hopefully creating the opportunity for other ‘at risk’ colleagues to step in or up, depending on where they were in their careers and personal circumstances - which is what happened.

Now it feels like I’ve come full circle. 

I started my working life as a professional actor. This meant i spent most of my early working years ‘out of work’ (i.e. not acting) but in that time I worked in many other roles - fruit-picker, postman, delivery driver, barman, shop salesperson, follow-spot operator, audio-typist, office manager - with the occasional acting job to keep me on my chosen career path. Acting contracts ranged from 6 weeks to 10 months. And then I’d be back on the job hunt again whilst typing solicitors’ letters, pulling pints or delivering building supplies. It was the original ‘gig’ career.

It was only after I walked away from an acting career which wasn't going anywhere quickly enough, to pursue more security, home and family building, that I realised that along the way I had developed resilience, adaptability and lots of transferable skills. And that I had NOT wasted the first 12 years of my working life - I had been preparing myself for whatever career paths lay ahead.

The story of how I became an IT Trainer, Training Manager and Learning Consultant over the next 30 years is for another time. Sufficient to say that those skills I developed in my early career and my capacity to deploy them and to learn new skills has got me to where I am today.

As we all know, the world of work is changing fast. There is no such thing as a job for life any more. Everyone will face redundancy at some point in their working lives, maybe more than once. Lifelong learning and a preparedness to grasp new skills and opportunities are skills in themselves and it behoves us to embrace them, irrespective of what sectors we may work in.

As I update my own CV, in readiness for another late career flexible working ‘gig’ life, I wonder how you see yourself, your strengths, your successes and what you can do to future-proof your employability. For example, one of the questions - amongst many - I’m asking myself right now is, what skills have I got that AI doesn’t and, if I have any, how can I leverage them over the next few years? And is that even a sensible question?

What questions are you asking yourself about your future of work and how are you preparing yourself for that? Let me know if I can help you with those questions or help you plan your future career strategy. My contact details are in LinkedIn.

Reconnecting

I’m off to the CIPD Festival of Work in London next week.

Photo by Shane Rounce on Unsplash

Now, given that the CIPD and I parted company at the end of April, you may be a little surprised to hear that. Well, whilst I no longer work at CIPD, I remain a member, as I have been for over 20 years now. Over those years, and alongside my member and Fellowship of the Learning and Performance Institute, I have worked in the public, private and charity sectors and developed my professional skills and forged many different professional and personal relationships.

So since leaving CIPD, I’ve been intentionally reconnecting with some of those people. I've been both surprised and pleased to have heard from, arranged to meet with and/or spoken with several individuals already. I’ve had a few voice calls, some Zoom/Teams online conversations and met some other folks for face to face ‘coffee catch-ups’, with more in the diary. (At this point, I could @List so many great people, but this isn’t a self-serving LinkedIn post and they know who they are anyway). Sufficient to say that each and every one of those conversations was different, authentic and nourishing. 

And now I’m looking forward to more of those and a full day’s learning and reconnecting at the Festival of Work next week.

I’ve been powerfully reminded about the value of connection - and the need for us all to develop and maintain our relationships. And it’s got me wondering: Who and what are my tribes? Who am I drawn to - and why? Who is drawn to me - and why? Why are we already connected, and who else should I be connecting to now?

Because this is not just about maintaining a ‘useful’ professional network, it’s about future-proofing my late career ‘active retirement’.

My active retirement will not be totally work-focussed. It will be fulfilling in so many different ways - I have some freelance work already in train, with capacity for more; I have more free time to reflect, write, continue learning to dance, dance more, walk more, travel, visit more heritage railways, spend more time with family and my pals, all while I still have the capacity and capability to do so.

I hope to see you along the way.