Meet a Change Management Expert: Joscelyn Henry-Shaw
Hi, I’m Joscelyn Henry-Shaw, and I work as a PPM Profession Change Manager at NHS England. I came into this team from the Corporate Portfolio Office at Health Education England before its merger with NHSE and NHS Digital in April 2023.
Previous roles in the NHS have been around corporate management, portfolio risk, and reporting, before moving into change management. On the side, I have also been involved with communities of practice, regional networks, and health and wellbeing.
Change Management is all about people, and it is those people who are instrumental in getting things done. I love to work alongside people, to help them achieve and succeed, and you can learn so much by talking to people. I enjoy bringing people together to create communities and networks, so we can share and learn together. Why re-invent the wheel as they say!
It is important to me to be and do the best that I can do at work. Investing in myself gives me an opportunity to learn and develop as a professional and puts myself in the best possible position to help others. Things move on all the time and I feel it is imperative to try and move along with them as to not get left behind where you have no idea what people are talking about.
I did a couple of things. First, I checked what courses were available internally. The Organisation had a list of approved courses and suppliers, and this would be the easiest route to get approval to attend. Second, I spoke to contacts of mine who have knowledge and experience in the field of change management. These contacts were members of the communities and networks that I help to run, so were trusted. Some were NHS, others were external, which gave me a more widespread perspective and insight.
I’ve enjoyed all the training I have been lucky enough to attend. It’s been a mix of in-person and virtual, and I believe both have their pros and cons, but ultimately, I gained valuable experience, knowledge, and skills from completing them. It’s been great to learn about different areas of change management: the fundamentals, the tools, the agile approach, and neuroscience. I would say it’s important to determine which course outcomes would be more beneficial in your current role before embarking on such training, as you want to be able to implement these straight away.
Having attended change management training courses, I feel more confident doing my role and offering advice to colleagues. It’s also given me confidence to try new approaches to my work, such as storytelling techniques and using new templates. Being able to say that I have done such training I think gives me more credibility in the eyes of my peers, which can definitely work in my favour when building relationships and allies!
There are lots of courses and training opportunities out there, seek advice from peers and connections before proceeding to book anything. Recognise what knowledge and skills your role requires and compare these with the course outcomes. Furthermore, don’t forget about all the free resources out there which can help you. For example, the Healthcare Project and Change Association (HPCA) has a free online community of practice which hosts a change management specific interest group, they run free storytelling community sessions and lots more interesting webinars, and then there’s the Change Management Institute and Prosci who host many free resources on their websites. At the end of the day, enjoy what you do! 😊