Kate Stanley is a 2010 Clore Social Fellow. Reflecting on her own experience, Kate shares some micro-tips for transition during lockdown in her video, plus transcript below.

Hi, my name is Kate Stanley and when Clore Social put out the call for stories about leading through this period of lockdown, I thought it was an interesting opportunity to reflect on my own experience of transition during this lockdown period.

Last week I was working at the NSPCC as a Board Director, where I was director of strategy policy and evidence. I was at NSPCC for over eight years and I had a team of 65, a substantial budget and a significant span of control. Obviously NSPCC is one of the country's largest children’s charities and has a long history of over 130 years of preventing cruelty to children.

That was last week. This week I have started my new role - I’ve joined the FrameWorks Institute. We have a team of three in the UK and big plans. It would be a really significant change at any time but obviously it's particularly significant during this time of lockdown.

The FrameWorks Institute is a non-profit based in the US and it works to help other non-profits to shift public understanding of important social issues to drive social change. It does this through framing research. Framing is really about what we say and how we say it, so it helps organisations to reframe their issue to drive social change.

That would be, as I said, a big change at any time but especially big now, so I was reflecting on the things that have helped me during this transition. There are three things that really popped to mind straightaway:

1. Don’t neglect rites of passage

The first one was about rites of passage. My background is an anthropologist. In anthropology you learn about rites of passage being important. Ways of marking moments in time. Obviously when we leave organisations there are certain rites of passage that we normally have and at this time of lockdown many of those just aren’t possible; the get-togethers, the drinks and so on. So we had a zoom farewell which was that opportunity for me to say bye to colleagues and to say thank you and good luck, and for them say bye to me. I was very hesitant to do this at first but actually I'm really glad that I did. It was an important opportunity to mark that rite of passage, to mark that moment of transition and I'm really glad I got the chance to to say bye.

2. Pay attention to your work environment

The second thing that's made a difference is something as simple as rearranging the study in which I work. Now obviously, we're all working, or many of us are working, at home at the moment but having a new setup, new things around me to mark that transition from one organisation to another has again been really important and helpful for me in marking that change.

3. Reconnect with your network

The third thing that, I would reflect, has been important is to reconnect with networks. As many of you will recognise that when you're doing a high pressure intensity job, it’s quite difficult to keep up with your networks. But if you're involved with Clore Social, you’ll also know how important that they are. So this has been a really good moment for me to reconnect with networks, reconnect with former colleagues and to strengthen those ties so I feel like I'm part of something much bigger.

So, there are three things that have helped me in this transition during this lockdown phase. I hope you're getting on alright, and I look forward to hearing your story.

My name is Serena Cecchinato, currently Operations Director at Give Us Time, a small military charity supporting Armed Forces families in need of rest and rehabilitation after suffering stresses and strains as a family unit.

I applied for the Cobseo Emerging Leader Programme after my Managing Director heard about the opportunity. At the time, the charity was going through some changes and adjustments which resulted in me having to take up more responsibilities in my role as well as managing a full-time member of staff. Back then, I took the opportunity more to benefit my organisation and my team rather than myself. I didn’t know it would be an extraordinary and life changing personal journey, as well as a professional one.

I think what a lot of people get wrong about “leadership” is that they consider it to be a skill to acquire, some magic wand you can buy along the way. What I have found thanks to the Programme is that everyone is a leader and leadership belongs to everyone; you just need to discover your own leadership style and in which situations you can put it to good use.

"You just need to discover your own leadership style and in which situations you can put it to good use."

In August 2017 as part of my Clore Social fellowship, I embarked on a four-month sprint with a group of professionals working outside of their day jobs at Marks & Spencer and Unilever to prototype Project Xroads, an intergenerational support network and skills-sharing programme.

Building leaders

The programme was supported by Collectively, who bring together businesses, innovators, activists, facilitators and change makers to explore issues of inequality, and create action plans to address them. As a social sector leader, I wanted to work in the business sector to extend my leadership experience. There was a huge amount of energy and talent in the team - together we grew as leaders as we worked out how change could be achieved.

Multi-generational working

What interested us was the pace of change in the workplace and how it affects people of different ages. People are living and working longer than ever before and today modern offices can house up to four generations.

In the workplace we identified generational differences in digital skills, confidence and legacy. We found a huge opportunity to bring new entry and long career service employees together to exchange life and business skills.

Developing the prototype

We talked to people across the businesses as well as age, youth and volunteering agencies to gain insight on these issues. We spoke to over 200 people through an online survey, face to face interviews and focus groups with long service and new entry employees, learning that 64% of people would be interested in a cross-generation programme.

Our research findings showed that new entry employees would like a safe space to share every day work issues outside of line management discussions. Their workplace challenges include finding information, navigating office politics, and they would like more decision making and presentation skills to help them grow in confidence. They are concerned about the increasing focus on academia to get a job: ‘All that seems to matter is how you do at school - it would be good for people to define success in a different way.’

Long service employees have a desire to share knowledge and benefit others as they felt they could offer support for younger colleagues with self-management. They recognise the pressure of those entering the workforce today to be financially independent. Their workplace challenges include access to technology and worries around financial security and legacy. They would be excited to be part of something new. ‘I'm increasingly concerned with my 'legacy' and whether my work has made a difference’, explained a long service employee.

To pilot the programme, we teamed up employees who had struggled to find work and had already been on a programme to help them enter the workplace, and those who had been in their careers for over 20 years. We found that the digital savvy newer workforce were keen to exchange their skills with experience and a deeper understanding of the business from longer serving colleagues.

Next steps

We want to develop a six-month skills sharing programme with sessions on connection, digital, wellbeing, empowerment, sustainability and community that could be run in every workplace. Our aim is to build solidarity across generations and create platforms for new thinking. Xroads could increase wellbeing at key points across our working lives - it has the potential to initiate a global step change in intergenerational relations. If you are interested in helping develop the programme do get in touch with me via Twitter.

Jane will be talking about perceptions of ageing at an RSA Ideas event on 30 January.