A day in the life

I check in with my team twice a week and each month we do a 1-2-1 where they can come to me with any concerns, and we can set goals about their personal development. I make sure they are taking enough annual leave, but also support my ASA with management of work cover and mailbox monitoring.

I help them find solutions to anything from a process that doesn’t work for their customer, system changes that might be needed, or more time-efficient ways to do something. This can be in the form of guidance, coaching, training, finding resources/people that can help with changes in workload or something that needs a particular skillset. I source experience/solutions for their more difficult/complex queries and handle escalations when needed.

I monitor the performance of the team through reports every month to make sure we are meeting all our customers’ Service Level Agreements. I also monitor the quality of the data being input to our database. Then I relay to my team the areas they should focus their time to make improvements.

I’m also responsible for allocating customers within my team. Therefore, I make sure I’m very familiar with my team’s skillset and specialist areas, the number of customers they currently work on, what extra work they do over and above, and how much time they must spend on customers. I enjoy being able to tell the directors about my team’s achievements in managers’ meetings, I get to share how proud I am of them.  One of my favourite things is when a team member passes their probation and I get to welcome them to the department officially.

I’m my team’s primary point of communication about company updates and changes in process or the industry, so once a week I have a catch up with them to make sure they haven’t missed any important announcements. Similarly, I liaise with other departments on their behalf.

I also have customers of my own to make sure I keep my knowledge on our systems and the industry up to date. So, for these customers I do all aspects of the ASA role data entry, invoice validation, contract uploads, query management, client meetings and reports.

I’m a people person, I love working with my team and department. I’m glad I’m part of such a big team that is supportive of each other. None of us is the expert, we all have areas we might know more about and collectively we are a library of knowledge. 

I’m a mathematician, so I love working with numbers and big data.  I also love solving problems, so when my team come to me with something I see them as puzzles, and I love a good challenge! 

My Brother. Probably not the answer people would expect but I guess it’s the adage of “not what you know, but who you know”! I started in data entry and worked for many years with energy intensive manufacturers helping them with Climate Change Agreements, Carbon footprints, and CRC (formerly known as Carbon Reduction Commitment). Before this I worked in insurance.   

I’m glad I moved to utilities/energy. I strongly believe that if there is an industry that is going to impact how we leave the planet for future generations, this is it. 

Don’t be afraid to ask questions. There are no stupid ideas or questions, that’s how we learn.

Firstly, there is no point stewing on something if you’re stuck, procrastinating on it helps no-one, ask for the help.

Secondly, it’s okay to not be an expert, you don’t have to know everything; you just need good contacts to go to for their advice.

Thirdly, “if you don’t ask you don’t get.” What is the worst that can happen? They say no, and you’ve lost nothing. Most people are happy to help. 

I love maths; I am a self-confessed geek and very comfortable with that. I know many maths teachers, so I often help them mark homework and I’ve been known to do past papers for fun! 

I play a lot of board games. I also see the value of being silly, my friends and family are used to this from me though, and these days I can normally con them into joining me. As it is the season at present, I’m normally convincing them to go on a snow hunt with me. 

I’m hoping to buy a house this year, so that’s also taking up my free time currently!