Workplace Manager Review

My role involves the management of a 24/7 Front of House operation for the BBC as a subcontracted service partner. I am responsible for 25 reception staff who cover 5 receptions across the BBC's Central London Campus. My responsibilities include, Visitor Management, ID unit, Access Control System and Customer Service, for staff, visitors and members of the public.

As a result of the apprenticeship, I have now created a development plan for my team and have all 22 individuals following a ‘development pathway’ with a PDP, CDP and action plan. I have also been able to manage to complete a 121 every 3 weeks with all of the team, which I could never have dreamt of prior to the apprenticeship. 50% of the team are now involved in work experience to improve their skills on my skills gap matrix, while the rest are concentrating on their skills gap in their role or other new challenges. I’m also planning for some taking on an apprenticeship too!

The programme helped me to learn how to learn. Week by week I was able to fine tune how I read questions, how I answered questions and with the help of my tutor I was able to learn how to assess the criteria required for the questions, which is something that I have been able to carry over into my day job and able to focus more on the big picture and what the real issue is.

To start off, the programme was quite chaotic. There seemed to be an urgency and excitement to get this new apprenticeship programme under way with no real leadership in place at senior management level. As a result the course was launched prematurely, with no fixed tutor in place. After 12 months a good 50% of the students left the course due to the lack of support/drive from the leadership team and it was quite clear to all students that the tutor was not getting the support required. Fortunately, Wendy Jenkins was assigned to the course and her tenacity and drive was infectious and she was able to grab hold of us and progress as best she could. Even though the beginning of the apprenticeship was such a shambles, watching Wendy persevere and get me and other students through was such a great motivator to me and enabled me to get through to the end, against all odds, and receive a Distinction.

My employer was totally supportive of my apprenticeship from day one. There was a healthy vibe around the learning and a very positive culture established within the business. My line manager was able to allow me 20% off the job learning, which was a huge commitment given my 24/7 operational remit.

I have received great support from my training provider in the later stages of the apprenticeship, since Wendy Jenkins became the tutor. The first year was very disjointed and the team experienced several weeks of disappointment when the One File account was activated and one they were on, it wasn't an easy system to navigate.

Throughout the apprenticeship I have grown as a manager and as a leader. Whether it be feedback from others or my own self awareness I have seen improvements in my time management, problem solving, leadership and management. I am much better organised and able to prioritise my workload more efficiently. I have also managed to schedule 121s with my team that I had never been able to achieve before.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been restrictions and constraints put in place to encourage social distancing. As a result, there are no physical networking opportunities. There have been some opportunities to reach out on LinkedIn which I have been able to do over the past few years and share thoughts and debate issues such as Me Too and Black Lives Matter campaigns.

Yes

Interserve has recently change to Mitie and I can only speak from my own experience. In my first few months of being a Mitie employee, both my self and my colleagues have been really impressed by the positive culture, the openness and transparency of the leadership and the encouragement for everyone to speak up and share their opinion. I believe that when I transferred into Interserve they were already showing signs of having problems financially and all of the priorities and focus were financially orientated and staff wellbeing took a back seat. Mitie have given a fresh boost into our team and account and I'm really looking forward to the future. Their communications to managers are well timed and positive and have given managers a good impression of how they fit in to the big picture.

Mitie is a great company to work for, with many areas to develop into if you wish to progress your career. There is a very healthy culture where we share our career aspirations which enables managers to create bespoke career development plans for their staff and also makes the team stronger the more they learn.