"My experiences allowed me to look at my career in a different way"
Published: 22 June 2022
As project officer Rebecca Robinson leaves us for pastures new, she reflects on the important work she undertook for IHW – creating a resource to support the wellbeing of older (50+) workers and building a picture of colleagues' experience of working during lockdown – and the personal and professional development that arose out of it...
As project officer Rebecca Robinson leaves us for pastures new, she reflects on the important work she undertook for IHW – creating a resource to support the wellbeing of older (50+) workers and building a picture of colleagues' experience of working during lockdown – and the personal and professional development that arose out of it...
I joined IHW as a part-time, fixed-term Project Officer in March 2020. The main remit of my new role was to create an online toolkit for the Athena Swan Older (50+) Workers Group or WOW Wellbeing of Older Workers as it's now known.
However, in those first few weeks of lockdown, the IHW’s Athena Swan Champion Cindy Gray alongside Nicola McMeekin and Janet Boutell – the co-founders and co-chairs of WOW – wanted to proactively acknowledge the challenges presented by the pandemic by consulting IHW staff about their experiences of home working to help inform the university's response. So, with the agreement of my post’s funder, my work was diverted for a time into research. I was very grateful for the opportunity to finally use some of my PhD research skills which had been lying dormant for some years!
Read more about this research
Qualitative findings from IHW Athena Swan survey on working from home
Quantitative findings from IHW Athena Swan survey on working from home
It also felt significant to have been offered the opportunity of meaningful professional development at a stage when my career had felt very stuck. I’m a 50+ worker who doesn’t feel like my own stereotype of an "older worker" and in many ways I’m fitter and healthier than before (being part of an intergenerational community dance company has helped) and I also now have an accumulated mix of varied professional skills and experience. Working with IHW, I was given the opportunity to develop, explore and refresh these skills. This also helped give me the impetus to apply, with the encouragement of IHW’s Jane Goodfellow, for a secondment from my other substantive part-time position.
The secondment, in Research and Innovation Services, leading a university-wide review of research integrity provision, has been another fascinating and rewarding professional journey and also helped propel me towards my next adventure.
In June 2022 I left UofG to begin working with the health and social care charity Carr Gomm as their new International Collaborations Project Manager for 12 months. So, I’m very grateful to the IHW, and in particular, my lovely line manager Nicola, for not only providing a very enjoyable and fulfilling working environment these past two years but for also enabling new possibilities that have allowed me to look at my career in a different way. I’m also glad to be staying on as an affiliate of IHW and hope that there might be the opportunity for more fruitful synergies in the future!
Rebecca Robinson
IHW affiliate
View the WOW (wellbeing of older workers) toolkit
First published: 22 June 2022
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