Menu
Departments
Back to main menu
Professions
Back to main menu
Life in the Civil Service
Back to main menu

Michelle’s blog
– Principal Occupational Psychologist

Name

Michelle Austin

Job role

Principal Occupational Psychologist

Government department

Ministry of Justice

What does your current role involve?

I am the lead for Organisational Design and Development (OD&D) services. In the Judicial office, we are different to most other government departments in that everyone here works to serve judges nationally. My role has two distinct aspects:

1. I serve the Judiciary by supporting with organisational development. For instance, I support judges in change readiness, culture, people’s motivation, and engagement. My role is available as a resource to support senior judges directly, in leading those sort of development needs. 

2. I also support staff in the Judicial office in both OD&D. 

At present, I have several projects under way. Two major projects are: supporting a team restructure with a new target operating model and commissioning a culture enquiry across the Judicial Office; to help us as an organisation to be intentional about the culture we develop. Another aspect of my role is increasing the capability and capacity of OD&D competence in Judicial staff and wider. I have recently co-launched a community of practice across the MOJ and all of our Arm’s-length bodies (ALBs). Thus, to help with the professionalisation, confidence and skills of anyone who does Organisational Design and Development across MOJ and in the wider MOJ family.

What does a typical day look like for you?

There is no ‘typical’ in my day! And I love it! I have several core responsibilities and work on multiple work projects simultaneously. I am also an advisor to our internal Hybrid working group and a Deputy Chair of our Wellbeing Group Network. I would usually have a mixture of meetings to take projects forward, for example to design and develop an initiative an OD&D perspective. I spend a lot of time in meetings with senior judges who commission me to work with them directly and do the full consultancy cycle. In other instances, I initiate projects myself through the Judicial Office Management Board and with team leaders, across the Judicial Office.

What skills helped you secure your role?

What I think I do most is applying my existing knowledge in the consultancy cycle: a strong evidence base on diagnostics and understanding the stakeholder needs. Thus, what are the real substantial changes they want to make and how to evaluate the impact these have. Stakeholder’s engagement also played a major role, and I have managed to build relationships and connections through my previous role. For instance, running a 9-year leadership and management programme with Judicial Leaders.

I am confident in standing in front of people and talking after many years of delivering training; you learn not to be intimidated. For example, next week I am running a what is hopefully a creative visioning session for 350 people– once you have done it once and it goes well, you get asked to do these types of things. It really helps to be an occupational psychologist, as judges respect the role of psychologists and the importance of the work we do. They are curious and willing to listen, because of our professional credibility. 

Can you describe your career journey?

I have been a civil servant for 21 years. I first joined the Civil Service in 2003 working as a Higher Occupational Psychologist for the Home office. I designed the Selection & Assessment centres for the Civil Service Grade 7 and the High Potential Police Scheme.

After 3 years, I became a Senior Psychologist in the Home Office Centre for Learning & Development and shortly after that a Learning & Development (L&D) Manager. This was not an occupational psychology designated role, so I had to negotiate for my title of a psychologist. I was responsible for designing and developing training for managers and staff on appraisal skills, leadership, management and mentoring. I also became qualified as an Executive Coach (International Coaching Federation Qualification) for the Civil Service and also created a Career Coaching programme– which was adopted across the whole Civil Service. Since then, I have been offering my services as an Executive coach across different departments.

In 2011 I moved to the Judicial office as a Grade 7 Education and Development Advisor for Judges. I stayed in the role until 2021. For the last 3-4 years of that time, I was in Grade 6 role and was on the Senior Leadership team for the Judicial College, which is part of the Judicial office and collectively responsible for 60 staff nationally. I was directly responsible for the leadership and management of 20 staff and headed up various teams of magistrates, lawyers, publications teams, trainers.

My team was responsible for ensuring the training capability and quality of the judicial trainers of the 22 000 judges in the UK. This is where my international work started. I worked with the United Nations, Office for Drugs and Crime (UNODC), and we trained the senior judges of over 55 countries in judicial training in judicial conduct and ethics. I was also part of the European Judicial Training Network and helped establish Judicial training in other countries. In 2021, I moved to my current role as a Principal Occupational Psychologist in the Judicial Office.