I started my civil service career as a temporary administration assistant in a jobcentre in Bristol, finishing as an assistant director over 28 years later in the Cabinet Office in Whitehall in October. Here are some key things I learnt.
Know what you believe in
You will always succeed in something that you just can’t let go of or let fail. For years, I promoted flexible working like a campaigner simply because I disagreed with something a senior male colleague said to me when I was trying to develop the Civil Service Job Share Finder website 10 years ago.
He couldn’t understand why any senior leader would want to sponsor the website’s creation as it only seemed to cater to a minority of civil servants: women with children! I didn’t agree that they were an “edge case”; research showed me the website could also benefit other groups such as disabled people, carers, pre-retirees and, of course, fathers.
I worked like a flexible working evangelist on the website from 2014 to 2021, won several awards for it and gained an MBE for my work promoting flexible working and equality in the workplace.
Seek out collaborators because you like to be in their presence
You should look to work with people who have complementary knowledge and skills, but most importantly, they need to make you feel comfortable, energised and inspired. I believe one of the keys to my work successes has been knowing who to collaborate with to have a great work experience.
For example, in 2017, I met Peter Cunningham (then a business intelligence manager, now Cabinet Office head of digital analysis capability) via a video call. He was impressed with my use of data in a CS blog on promoting flexible working. We met up and almost immediately got on like a house on fire. We had emotional and intellectual synergy and empathy for each other’s backstory and aspirations.
We worked together after hours to develop the Government Recruitment Information Database (now the award-winning Government Research and Insights Database), which we launched in 2020. We used GRID to power the Job Opportunities Map developed for the Civil Service Careers website when I was its product manager from 2017 to 2021. Peter and I continued collaborating up to when I left the civil service. We just enjoyed hanging out and producing ideas to put into motion.
Accept that you will have to become more visible if you want to progress a service you lead...or your career
When I started promoting the Civil Service Job Share Finder in 2015, it was difficult to drum up interest as it was the first service of its kind. I realised I would have to learn how to raise the service’s profile to get colleagues interested in it.
I threw myself into writing blogs and joined LinkedIn to promote it on social media. I entered the product in external benchmarking competitions and was fortunate enough to win a Working Families Special Award in 2016. I wrote my first CS blog talking about winning the award.
It was scary feeling so exposed, but it taught me the benefits of reaching a wider audience. I published CS blogs and presented at Civil Service Live. Years later, I realised that I also had the opportunity (and duty) to take my part in yearly Black History Month activities by virtue of my increasing corporate visibility.
The high point of my visibility within the civil service was delivering my innovation video case study in the One Big Thing Innovation Masterclass, from 2024 to 2025, with 160,000+ colleagues accessing the online training. Necessity calmed my nerves as I accepted that I would have to be visible to get my message across to as large an audience as possible.
Brian Stanislas was senior inclusive practice lead in the employee experience and people performance directorate of the Government People Group