This article is written by Yvonne Rinkart, a UK civil servant and Apolitical Insider Fellow. This article is edited by Hanin Odeh, Apolitical Insider Fellow.

A few months ago, The Rt Hon Robert Jenrick MP, the UK’s Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, spoke of the unsung heroes in local government, highlighting not only their “heroic achievements” but also their “small mercies” and “modest acts of care and compassion”.

To bring about these achievements, junior public servants are more important than ever. While we are facing the usual challenges of being new to government and new to public service, many of us are now directly supporting the implementation of high-level response strategies at practical, local levels and delivering small mercies and modest acts mentioned above.

With junior public servants’ perspectives on the current situation relatively rare, this text is based on my personal experiences as a business transformation project officer at London’s Southwark Council. I am fortunate to work within a supportive team where different skills and experiences are integrated. Therefore, I conclude this text with some ideas for how you can support junior members in your team.

What’s it like to contribute to the response to Covid-19 as a junior colleague in local government?

Covid-19 has rapidly transformed the way we work, and it has brought challenges and opportunities to public servants at all organisational levels.

With our ways of working transformed in recent weeks, junior colleagues’ perspectives may turn out to be an asset

In the UK alone, thousands of council staff have been redeployed in new roles. Council priorities have shifted, and even those were not redeployed, like me, saw their ways of working transformed almost overnight.

This situation poses some obvious challenges to your junior colleagues. They may not know your organisation as well as you do. Often relatively new in their post, they won’t have had the opportunity to build the same level of social networks as their senior colleagues. They are likely to have less experience with your work, and this may be the first time they are involved in crisis response.

Yet, there are important opportunities here that can be seized. Long before the pandemic, we already knew, from the Local Government Association’s research, that the 21st Century Public Servant plays new roles and applies new skills sets. Due to the transient nature of the job market in the past decade, we are likely to have experienced diverse work environments before starting our current roles. Indeed, with our ways of working transformed in recent weeks, junior colleagues’ perspectives may turn out to be an asset.

How can teams support junior colleagues, and make them an asset to your team?

  • Communicate context: Because we don’t know our organisation as well as you, and because our work is likely focused only on one part of the response, we need you to tell us about the bigger picture. This allows junior colleagues to understand their contributions to your team’s work, and it empowers them to propose new and innovating solutions. Communicating in uncertain times is particularly crucial, as it can reassure and reengage your team.
  • Build opportunities for learning: Now more than ever, it is important to learn from each other and turn workplaces into learning organisations. While junior colleagues would have the opportunity to learn informally in the office, a more direct approach may be needed to facilitate mutual learning while working remotely. Beyond your team, the UK’s Department of Education has compiled The Skills Toolkit, which compiles free courses, tools and resources to improve digital and numeracy skills. At a global level, the umbrella group United Cities and Local Governments have launched the Live Learning Experience #BeyondTheOutbreak.

Covid-19 challenges us to become more flexible, collaborative and agile

  • Build engagement and trust: Because junior colleagues are new to your team, we may not yet have as much experience collaborating in your organisation. To respond to Covid-19, new teams are being formed quickly to meet demands, but this leaves their members with limited opportunity to establish ways of communicate and collaborating with each other. This can be particularly challenging to new colleagues who are not as familiar with cultures of your organisation. To compensate, create opportunities to build trust amongst your team.
  • Bringing it all together — building resilience: Resilience has been described as the hidden superpower of public servants. While we may well have faced personal crises, chances are that this is the first crises that your junior colleagues are weathering as members of your team. This makes the current situation an excellent opportunity to build resilience as a team, by bringing together all of the steps above.

Cherish your junior colleagues

With established ways of working disrupted by Covid-19, we have an opportunity to reframe our work and our teams. Covid-19 challenges us to become more flexible, collaborative and agile.

To support them in this, their teams can play a vital role to provide the right environment for unlocking their potential. Indeed, opportunities to experiment and problem-solve in new ways can be a powerful motivator which will allow them to come together to face new challenges. With business as usual and normal procedures made temporarily impossible, your junior colleagues can make an important contribution to finding solutions to problems new and old. — Yvonne Rinkart

(Picture credit: Unsplash)