Customer Relationship Manager Review

I work in analytics and reporting as a Customer Relationship Manager. This involves building dashboards and reports that enable leaders across the business to monitor a variety of different KPI's. This also involves attending daily calls with different stakeholders in order to understand their business requirements before going away to build dashboards to reflect the data they are looking to acquire. This is my fourth rotation within the business.

I have learnt numerous skills in each of my different rotations. Within the branch I developed primarily my customer service and colleague management skills, whereas now I am developing my stakeholder management, presentation and specialist skills. These have significantly improved during my time within the team and are I am continuing to work upon these going forward.

I am currently really enjoying the program. I struggled with support at the beginning of the program (bar the amazing support I received from tutor at the university) because of issues with rotations, however, now I am in a much better position and subsequently enjoying it a whole lot more.

The rotation structure of the program I have found to not be particularly organised as every person on the program that I am aware of has had issues with their rotation management. A primary cause of this is line manager understanding of the program and what is expected of an apprentice. I faced issues with being held in a rotation for too long in order to fulfill skill shortages which was fine short term but long term inhibited my development journey.

I receive a great deal of support from my employer now through my line manager and from within my immediate team. I receive recruitment coaching from specialist HR advisors, as well as personal development coaching from members within my team. I know who I need to contact if I have any issues and I am aware of all support available to me.

My personal tutor arranges calls with my every 6 weeks to check in on my progress, and I have regular email contact with her in order to answer questions I may have. When working towards qualifications, tutor leads on different modules are generally very easy to contact and happy to support in a virtual capacity.

My qualification has helped me to perform better in my role as assignment and examination content is directly focused on the business/industry I work within meaning investigations aid my understanding of the organisation and the importance of my position within it. Assignments that investigate personal development and leadership behaviors also help me to perform better as my weaknesses are recognized and development plans are created in order to perform better going forward.

There are multiple professional networking events available to join in with. I personally am in the Women in Banking and Finance forum, however, there are many other organisations available to get involved in. Social and sport activities are heavily dependent on the team that you work within as different teams have different views upon these kind of activities.

Yes

Barclays are a very supportive employer who offer their employers a number of different benefits. Shopping discounts, restaurant vouchers to name a few are available to all employees. There are a number of recognition and training programs that aim to fulfill employee satisfaction. Training is very thorough and there are a number of opportunities to expand skill.

Ensure you prepare thoroughly in advance because the interview process is incredibly long (I had to complete 5 separate assessments/interviews) which took a considerable amount of time. If successful, make sure you make the most of every opportunity as you get out of the experience what you put in. Time management is crucial.