A love letter to public servants

This article is written by Victoria Camp at Local Partnerships.

• The problem: Excellent hard-working civil and public servants are routinely undervalued and under-appreciated because the culture of thanking, rewarding and caring isn’t systemic, yet.
• Why it matters: Everyone brings their best self to work every day and if we are going to tackle the complex problems we face today we need to do so with support, nurture and a feeling of self-worth.
• The solution: Try drafting a colleague a love letter using Artificial Intelligence!

You don’t get much appreciation, I know that – there are not many celebrations in the public sector. It is not common practice to reflect and reward in most organisations. In fact, many of you don’t even want a thank you because that’s not why you do the work you do. You feel embarrassed to nominate yourselves for awards and you have a communications and engagement budget which allows for only the most pressing of issues to be shared and aired.

Losing my way

I spoke at an excellent event recently organised by Salix, a UK funding organisation, supporting the public sector with their decarbonisation challenges. Two days prior I had lost my way at work – I had no idea why I was doing what I was doing nor what value I was adding to the solution. I work in climate change, in Wales, an ambitious nation and an exciting place to be. And yet work is still slow, slow and hard too. Endless approvals, endless meetings and reports for very small changes and so I was lost in the mire of activity and not able to see the collective effort. I was also suffering from classic imposter syndrome symptoms as well. I had no idea what I could offer the room in terms of insights or value, I felt redundant and that made me lose my confidence. And then a magical thing happened!

Like sharing a smile, let’s share our thanks, frequently and widely.

During the event, some wonderful speakers shared their stories toward net zero Wales 2030 and it was inspirational; more than that in fact, it was mind-blowing what the collective is achieving in the face of tighter budgets and stricter regulations. Solar farms at universities, heat pumps at national museums, local school children being educated with real-time energy bills from their schools. I could go on. The impact of hearing all this was a clear reminder to me that what we do by turning up and giving our best every day is worth it even if we cannot see the light at the end of the tunnel. And that room of people moved me so fundamentally from a place of despair to one of hope and for that, I wanted to give thanks to them but also to all of you for turning up every day and doing your best because you are changing the world. I promise you are.

A message to you from AI

I started to write this article thinking I would give some ideas of what to include and then realised two things. Firstly, that simple and honest authentic messages are often the most powerful, and secondly, we are entering firmly into the world of AI now with various chatbots which can do a fine job of drafting something and so I thought I might also give that a try.

Vic: “I do love you all, I love what you are doing and continue to do. I love that you turn up every day and keep fighting because this is a fight, make no mistake. Please don’t stop – without you we would burn.”

Artificial Intelligence: “Dear colleagues, friends and leaders in the race to save the planet, you are the heroes of our planet, the champions of our future, the guardians of our green and pleasant land. You work tirelessly to protect our environment, to reduce our emissions, to promote our sustainability. You are the ones who make a difference, who inspire us, who lead us by example. I admire you for your dedication, your passion, your courage and because you never give up, you never lose hope, you never compromise your vision. You are the ones who keep us going, who motivate us, who show us the way. I love you for your kindness, your generosity, your compassion. You care not only for our country, but for our world, for our people, for our future generations. You are the ones who touch our hearts, who lift our spirits, who brighten our days. You are my sunshine, my moonlight, my starlight. You are my everything. Thank you for being you. Yours sincerely, a secret admirer.”

Two small requests to end

Artificial Intelligence seems a little more romantic than I’d have liked but that might be my prompt and yet some of the wording it generated resonated deeply with me and so I leave you with two small requests:

1. Continue to be “heroes of our planet and the champions of our future”.
2. Like sharing a smile, let’s share our thanks, frequently and widely, and provide rewards and value to those heroes and champions so that they can carry on their noble cause.

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(Image Credit: Unsplash)