The Department for Communities and Local Government (CLG) was created on 5 May 2006.

The Department was keen to ensure that all staff had the opportunity to understand the benefits of a new government initiative, Professional Skills for Government (PSG). This important initiative was introduced to equip the Civil Service with the skills needed to deliver 21st Century services. It offers a framework of desired skills and competences for all civil servants.

CLG wanted a development programme which would help staff get to grips with what PSG meant for them individually and which would give them the chance to take stock of their achievements, skills and abilities and to explore their career aspirations and personal vision.

Our Story

We designed a one-day workshop called “Taking the Lead – Managing Your Future”. Its aim was to enable individuals to take greater responsibility for managing their own career; objectives included helping people optimise their potential within their current role and understanding how to develop their potential for future roles.

The workshop placed the individual at the centre and took a broader approach than a traditional career development workshop. It used a simple but effective framework of Past, Present and Future, centred around four key questions:

1. Where am I now?
2. What does my employer want from me?
3. Where do I want to be/go?
4. How can I get there? 

With a lot of previous experience of designing and delivering similar events we knew that in order to explore the answers to the four questions we needed to get participants thinking creatively, as well as handling the necessary inputs.  Activities were devised to ensure that both left and right brains got a workout. Most importantly, we wanted the day to be enjoyable, fun even, with people leaving the workshop feeling energised and inspired to take their learning further.

Faraday has now run workshops for more than 800 CLG staff. The most frequently reported benefits of the workshop include:

• Encouraging staff to reflect on their values, life purpose and aspirations
• Understanding how to make best use of PSG and how to develop skills as a result
• Time to think and time to think about future direction
• Focussing on strengths and what to do next
• Learning about self, understanding personal commitments and taking responsibility for self
• Sharing ideas and ‘stories’ with colleagues