Most coaches will work with any client. In this blog post, I'm going out on a limb! I've made a deliberate choice to specialise. As well as having a particular interest with solving work-related challenges, I specifically love helping people who work in the public sector, especially women.
I’ve worked in different parts of the New Zealand public sector over 20 years – four Government departments, three universities, and two Crown entities… which means that working in the public sector is where I've spent most of my career. It's familiar ground. You could even say it's my career 'home base'.
When I came back from teaching in Europe and returned to Wellington, I was at a loose end. Some friends suggested tempting for a few months – I hesitated (because my typing is good, but not great) but I’m so glad I tried it. My first temp role was in a Crown entity with an education focus – my first role in the public sector – and it was like the stars had aligned. The organisation's work had a clear impact beyond one individual at a time, it was about creating 'public value' not dollars, and best of all, I'd found my tribe.
In those 20 years I've covered a lot of ground, from policy supporting more school kids to learn languages, and developing work programmes to combat racism, to accounting for all our overseas students after the Christchurch earthquake, and reporting how well our hospitals are doing. And through it all, I was lucky to have the opportunity to coach and mentor others coming through the ranks with as intense a focus as I had to do good work and make a difference. They would as often as not ask questions about how they could be more involved and contribute more, at a higher level.
That's what I love about public sector people and why they're the people I most enjoy coaching. Whether they're policy analysts, data crunchers, comms advisors, teachers, in public sector HR or IT, almost without exception, public sector people are drawn by the opportunity to have an impact for New Zealand and New Zealanders. And, despite all the obstacles and stressors that come with working in a democratic bureaucracy (mostly for the important reasons of equity and transparency), and all the political headwinds, they remain dogged in their efforts to get high quality results.
And you need to be dogged — because the public sector has never been an easy environment in which to work. The bureaucratic and political headwinds can be gale force, restructures come and go on repeat, and the gap between wanting to make a difference and feeling like you're actually making one can be exhausting to sit with day after day. In my last public sector role, I found the loss of trusted, experienced colleagues thanks to restructures really frustrating – their knowledge was still needed, and finding the someone to answer questions in their place was hard, making the system more inefficient and more opaque.
That's why I want to help public sector professionals – to make more day-to-day work progress, reduce the stress they feel, avoid burnout, and feel more job satisfaction – so they’ll keep on doing their stuff.
So, if you work in the public sector, but think 'Surely work should feel better than this?', I've got your back.
I help professionals in the public sector, especially women, make more progress in their work, reduce their stress and avoid burnout, and feel more satisfied and positive at the end of the day. I include helpful gems from the research evidence in most blog posts that you can try out for yourself at work. I've just launched a new 1:1 online coaching offering focusing on tackling your work overwhelm, and offer completely personalised coaching too. Do get in touch, I’d love to hear from you.