The Future for Young Professionals
On this episode of The Business Brunch, we are joined by guests Sian Hewitt and Claudia Lacey of Freeths and Lois Jones of Boardman Hawkins & Osborne LLP, as they discuss their own individual experiences of the past 12 months and how they’ve found balancing work and home life…
The past 12 months have massively impacted everyone both positively and negatively but for the younger generations, many would argue that they’ve had it the worst. For young adults, these are the years of development and growth, both personally and professionally. This year has forced young professionals to develop personally and professionally in very unusual circumstances and they’ve had to deal with new challenges on a daily basis, starting a career is scary in a ‘normal’ world but doing this from home and all virtually has added a whole new dimension to the working world.
Sian, Claudia and Lois were all in agreement that this year has been challenging but they also acknowledged that this year has included many positives such as gaining more self-belief. Sian said, “The transition of home working has helped my professional development and decision making skills, due to working alone and having less contact with individuals, I’ve become more confident in my own ability to provide great work.” Working virtually has meant that being self-motivated is key, limiting distractions and staying focused while working from home can be a real challenge. On the contrary, it’s important that you don’t work over your hours and burn out, finding the right balance between work and home life is also very important.
When asked what our guests have missed most over the past 12 months, Lois said, “I feel like I’ve mainly missed normal routine, getting up every morning and having something that you know you’re going to do.” We’ve had to adjust the way we work massively and having our routines taken away from us can be quite disorientating and has made it tricky to get into a work headspace. Claudia was in agreement with this and also said “the switch to working from home full time and not having face to face interactions with my colleagues was a big change, but the virtual meetings have helped to develop my skills in communication and have increased everyone’s ability to practice active listening.” For a year full of negatives, it’s really reassuring to hear that there have been lots of positives and that young professionals have been able to gain invaluable skills over this time.
To find out more about Initiate which Sian refers to in the discussion, please contact Sian at: mail: Sian.Hewitt@freeths.co.uk Freeths website: https://www.freeths.co.uk/
BHO website: https://www.bholegal.co.uk/
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