22 NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS FOR 2022

Rob Oehlers, director of customer success:
“With the changes in the workplace I am resolving to reach out on a weekly basis to at least one colleague that I do not normally interact with regularly to have a social chat – you might call it that ‘water cooler’ moment. It will help with social interaction, allow me to check on their welfare, workload and general wellbeing.”

Claire Williams, director of people and services:
“I’m determined to achieve a few personal and professional resolutions this year, so have set myself some clear goals and timelines! Workwise, I plan on bringing my A game at all times – listen more, read more, write more, network more, and ensure that I’m keeping my diary as balanced as possible to ensure I can give my teams and employees enough time. Among my personal goals, I plan to learn sign language. I’ve always wanted to learn, and it will be a great way to extend my mentorship with HR professionals to include those that are deaf (if I can get good enough that is).”

Megan Hope, partner manager:
“Working from home has created all sorts of new rituals, one of which involves my boyfriend and I asking each other each evening: ‘What does your day look like tomorrow?’. But when I look at my calendar, it’s often full of generic meeting titles like catch-up, update or follow-up. This can be hard to decipher, especially when there’s nothing else written in the description. So my work resolution for 2022 is to write well-defined meeting titles and agendas that can serve as a preparation tool before the meeting and a guide during it. Hopefully, this will lead to a more productive and effective use of everyone’s time.”

Anita Kerai, learning and development coordinator:
“My new year’s resolution is to carry on looking after my mental health and wellbeing through mediation and complete my meditation training course. The pandemic has been crazy for everyone and having a focus on myself, my mind and my health will continue to enable me to be productive, happy, and focused.”

Gwenan West, head of people and talent:
“My new year’s resolution is to find a way to encourage more open discussions in the workplace and encourage employees to be able to be their own true self at work. We spend the majority of our life working and to have to hide your true self at work must be exhausting. I believe if we encourage our colleagues to be themselves, this will encourage a more open culture and we will see the benefits in increased collaboration and productivity.”

Cathryn Newbery, head of content and community:
“My resolution is to close my emails more often. My job requires me to spend time on deep work – which I can’t easily do with email notifications popping up. Closing the app gives me breathing and thinking space, and, hopefully, will help me complete tasks more quickly.”

Andy Leech, project services team lead:
“My new year’s resolution is to be more realistic with my capacity and timescales. My default answer is always ‘Yes, I can do that by tomorrow’. In my head that is the most helpful thing to do. However, once you have said ‘Yes, I will do that by tomorrow’ to multiple requests, workload can exceed capacity. Commit to a realistic timescale and you can still wow.”

Alex Barclay, head of technical operations:
“Our new year’s resolution across Technical Operations is to further improve response times, provide clearer guidelines around working with us and ultimately reducing the lead times of delivering work.”

Whitney Hayes, client support analyst:
“Since starting at Ciphr in June, I have seen how strong technical knowledge has allowed my colleagues to help customers more quickly. So I took an online course, outside of work, to help me improve my knowledge in this area, and recently passed. My new year’s resolution for 2022 is to apply my newly acquired skills and knowledge, and generally improve my productivity.”

Laura Alldis, head of customer experience:
“While I tend to try and be as agile as possible within the working world and wholeheartedly believe we can change at any point, next year I am wanting to work on a small change to broaden my general knowledge and read more. I was an avid reader until I became a full-time working mum, and then I never seemed to have the time. So I am going to commit to reading a few nights a week rather than scrolling through my phone.”

Lucien Caldwell, senior C++ developer:
“Building to-do lists and note taking has become a solid part of my 2021 working life. It’s great to have a single place to keep track of all sorts of random things. In 2022, I’m going to work out how to organise them in a way that makes guiding my workflow easier.”

Katie Reis, account development manager:
“The majority of my role is sole working, after almost two years of working mostly in isolation, my goal for 2022 is to collaborate more on projects with members of my team and importantly the new additions. This will not only change up my day-to-day tasks and processes, but help build stronger relationships, upskill the newer team members and develop my knowledge and skills further.”

Shirley Bousfield, strategic HR consultant:
“In 2022 I aim to improve my networking to build on existing relationships and create valuable new ones, thereby increasing and sharing knowledge and best practice. While I love working with people, I’m naturally quite shy so this is an area I have to put effort into, particularly when working remotely and there are fewer natural opportunities to meet people.”

Chris Adewale, business development executive:
“My work-related resolution is to get to grips with, and be ready for, the new technology coming to the sales team. This new tech is going to streamline our sales process, automate a lot of our current admin, and will also give us a better overall view of our pipelines. So, it should help bring in extra meetings if we are able to prepare correctly.”

Elliott Gill, people manager:
“For 2022, my new year’s resolution for work is to have more informal coaching sessions with Ciphr’s managers and future managers, helping to encourage more employees to think about internal moves and career progression or development opportunities. This training will also help enable managers to have even more effective conversations with their teams and manage any difficult conversations that may arise in the early stages before any issues escalate.”

Amanda Barnden, payroll sales manager:
“My new year’s resolution is to spring clean my laptop and reorganise my files. Over the past few years, I have created folders for all sorts of areas that seemed important at the time but are cluttering the space now. So it definitely needs a clear down. I might even find a forgotten treasure, as I go.”

Sinu Mohan, director of professional services:
“My new year’s resolution is to split bigger, longer-term projects down into many smaller tasks and intermediate goals that can be accomplished more easily. I think this is a good way to keep motivated and chart your progress, as the end always seems closer once each task is completed.”

Lucy O’Callaghan, talent manager:
“My new year’s resolution for 2022 is accept the fact that there will always be good and not so good days when it comes to Talent. Every day is different and it’s important to celebrate the highs and not dwell on the lows that inevitably come with working in an ever-changing world. The key is to learn from those experiences and enjoy the journey.”

Bradley Burgoyne, head of learning & development:
“When I used to commute to the office regularly, I often listened to audio books in the car, which helped provide inspiration for my work. Now I’m working remotely more, I’ve not prioritised making time to continue listening or reading books. My new year’s resolution is to set time aside, at least two times a week, to read/listen to an audio book.”

Emma-Louise Jones, digital PR manager:
“One thing that I miss about office / hybrid working is the ‘random’ interesting chats you often have with people outside your direct team. As a remote worker, it’s very easy to go days without talking to people you don’t directly work with, so for 2022 my resolution is to continue to build my social connections at work and get to know as many colleagues from across the Ciphr business as possible.”

David Richter, director of marketing:
“It’s pathetic that I need to do this but I’m going to add the app I use to restrict screen time on my kid’s devices onto my phone. I’m also going to read more, get more early nights and exercise more frequently. All of these have a positive impact on my mood and ability to think clearly at work.”

John Vivian, support consultant:
“My new year’s resolution is to continue to work from my Motorhome in 2022 – bringing a whole new meaning to ‘taking Ciphr on the road’… ”