What is the most enjoyable part of your working day?
Talking to colleagues and clients
What’s the most challenging part of your working day?
Using Teams/Zoom/Google Meet was new and developing a way to make that experience more natural and enjoyable has taken time, but I hope I am much better using these forms of media now.
What is the most satisfying part of what you do?
Meeting and interacting with colleagues and clients, which has been more of a challenge over the last year as this has largely been done remotely which does not give me the same buzz.
How have you adapted to working from home?
I have my own space but do change rooms for some variety when I have a call for example, I also make sure I take time on each call to talk about things beyond the immediate reason for the call, asking how staff and clients are and sharing experiences to replace the usual face-to-face contact we had around the coffee machine.
What advice would you give your younger self/someone just starting out?
Hard work pays off! Taking chances doing new things gets you noticed and really helps you learn, being positive is key, stay true to yourself and when you get knocked down, because you will, just get back up and learn from it.
How do you break up your day – breaks, lunch, a walk?
Lunch with my son and hopefully a walk later on with at least one family member.
Tell me about how you manage your To Do list.
I book tasks into my diary, so I know what needs doing and by when. When I get an email or take a call that I do not deal with immediately, I set up a slot with details of what needs doing by when so each day I know not only what meetings I have, but what time critical tasks need doing.
What was the work highlight of 2020 for you?
Pitching for, winning and delivering an audit to a client without meeting them in person!