Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • Brightmine
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Free trial
    • Request a quote
  • Webinars
  • Advertise
  • OHW+

Personnel Today

Register
Log in
Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • Brightmine
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Free trial
    • Request a quote
  • Webinars
  • Advertise
  • OHW+

Personnel Today

Career file: Clement O’Donovan

by Personnel Today 1 Apr 2000
by Personnel Today 1 Apr 2000

This month: Clement O’Donovan, workforce development advisor, Middlesbrough
Social Services

Age 50

How long have you been in this job?
I have worked in the training unit since 1980.

How long have you been with your organisation?
I have almost 28 years’ continuous service.

What does your role involve?

I am responsible for the training and development of more than 1,100
employees who either provide direct social care services or manage and support
care work.

What’s the best thing about your job?

The dedication of the people I work with.

What’s the worst thing about your job?

My 90-mile round trip drive every day. I live in the Durham Dales and I
estimate my return journey over the years is almost equivalent to a trip to the
moon and back.

What is your current major project or strategic push?

Applying the new Social Care National Training Strategy to the entire
workforce. The strategy is a challenging but much-needed initiative.

Preferred terminology

As Tony Blair would say, "Development, Development, and
Development".

Favourite buzzwords

"Clem, we are going to raise your salary" (which I have never
heard).

Most loathed buzzwords

Downsizing. Top-down.

Are you good at self-development?

I need no encouragement. Individual learning is a very good personal example
of perpetual motion.

What self-development have you done in the past six months?

I have taught myself how to use PowerPoint and am slowly becoming an
Internet anorak.

Where do you want to be in five years’ time?

Still doing the 90-mile round trip to the room with "Workforce
Development" over the door.

What was your most useful learning experience?

Becoming a father to two daughters taught me a great deal about women’s
rights and equal opportunities.

What was the worst course you ever went on?

I don’t believe there is such a thing. You can learn even from a bad course
or experience – you just have to look and think more beyond the experience.

What did you want to do when you left school?

At 15 I wanted to become a driving instructor. Perhaps that showed my
naïveté but my careers advisor was even more naïve – he said he would get me an
application form. I guess the desire to teach and train was in the embryonic
stage even at that age.

What was your first job?

I was a cost clerk for a drilling company and a few years later I went to
work on the rigs. It gave me a very good wage and an insight into life no
school could ever teach.

What was the best career decision you ever made?

Transferring into the social services training section following the closure
of the school I worked in. The move enabled me to get paid for a job that I
really enjoyed doing.

Which of your qualifications do you most value and why?

My diploma in management studies because I had such a wonderful time
achieving it and it helped me help my daughter achieve her post-graduate
management award. I also cherish my Football Association Treatment of Injuries
Award achieved in 1999 because it reinforced my belief that you are never too
old to learn something new.

How many minutes is it since someone senior in your organisation said,
"People are our greatest assets"?

Don’t you mean seconds?

Evaluation – Holy Grail or impossible dream?

Or the Ark of the Covenant.

How will your job have changed in five years’ time?

Working for a strategic partner in a 100 per cent commissioning role.

What will the core skills for your job be in the future?

Communicating through the keyboard and screen. And even more distant
learning.

What advice would you give to someone starting out in training and
development?

Be creative, inventive and never lose the desire to be part of another
person’s development.

If you could have any job in the world, what would it be?

First choice would be my current job (honestly) and second choice would be
chairman of the International Olympic Committee.

Do you take your work home with you?

Yes – in my trusty old school satchel because it puts a limit on what I can
actually carry.

What is your motto?

"Make sure they know more when they leave than they did when they
arrived." My family motto is, "A man above an enemy".

Describe your management style in three words or less

Platonically laid back.

Sign up to our weekly round-up of HR news and guidance

Receive the Personnel Today Direct e-newsletter every Wednesday

OptOut
This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

How would you like to be remembered by your colleagues?

As the happy one who scored a perfect zero on BBC TV’s Telly Addicts. I
persuaded my training administrator, Sue, to appear with me on the show. No-one
else has ever matched our standard. The experience taught me you can always
squeeze success from abject failure.

Personnel Today

Personnel Today articles are written by an expert team of award-winning journalists who have been covering HR and L&D for many years. Some of our content is attributed to "Personnel Today" for a number of reasons, including: when numerous authors are associated with writing or editing a piece; or when the author is unknown (particularly for older articles).

previous post
Body talk
next post
This week’s news in brief: UK’s largest website

You may also like

Forward features list 2025 – submitting content to...

23 Nov 2024

Features list 2021 – submitting content to Personnel...

1 Sep 2020

Large firms have no plans to bring all...

26 Aug 2020

A typical work-from-home lunch: crisps

24 Aug 2020

Occupational health on the coronavirus frontline – ‘I...

21 Aug 2020

Occupational Health & Wellbeing research round-up: August 2020

7 Aug 2020

Acas: Redundancy related enquiries surge 160%

5 Aug 2020

Coronavirus: lockdown ‘phase two’ may bring added headaches...

17 Jul 2020

Unemployment to top 4 million as workers come...

15 Jul 2020

Over 1,000 UK redundancies expected at G4S Cash...

14 Jul 2020

  • 2025 Employee Communications Report PROMOTED | HR and leadership...Read more
  • The Majority of Employees Have Their Eyes on Their Next Move PROMOTED | A staggering 65%...Read more
  • Prioritising performance management: Strategies for success (webinar) WEBINAR | In today’s fast-paced...Read more
  • Self-Leadership: The Key to Successful Organisations PROMOTED | Eletive is helping businesses...Read more
  • Retaining Female Talent: Four Ways to Reduce Workplace Drop Out PROMOTED | International Women’s Day...Read more

Personnel Today Jobs
 

Search Jobs

PERSONNEL TODAY

About us
Contact us
Browse all HR topics
Email newsletters
Content feeds
Cookies policy
Privacy policy
Terms and conditions

JOBS

Personnel Today Jobs
Post a job
Why advertise with us?

EVENTS & PRODUCTS

The Personnel Today Awards
The RAD Awards
Employee Benefits
Forum for Expatriate Management
OHW+
Whatmedia

ADVERTISING & PR

Advertising opportunities
Features list 2025

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Linkedin


© 2011 - 2025 DVV Media International Ltd

Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • Brightmine
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Free trial
    • Request a quote
  • Webinars
  • Advertise
  • OHW+