I have been at RM since 2020 and joined after taking voluntary redundancy. Before joining RM I worked at EON where I had again built a career in the contact centre becoming a Commission Analyst. I knew people who had worked at RM who spoken highly of working there and I had been in the energy sector for a few years and wanted a change. I had become interested in education since having a child myself so RM made sense as my next move. I liked starting in the contact centre as you really get to understand the business. I am inquisitive and I like to understand how my role impacts other areas of the business. I like networking and finding out more. It’s been fantastic.

From when I first started I was very open with management about what I had done before and what I wanted.  They knew I was taking my development seriously. I started on the TTS pre sales line then cross trained onto customer experience for TTS and then I worked on order management. I was given the opportunity to work with the procurement team on a post Brexit project as my manager knew this interested me. After that I got cross trained on Consortium. Then they put me on the payment line and then the opportunity arose to move to the procurement team.

I pushed and pushed at every opportunity and asking how can we make this happen. I didn’t use to be like that, in previous roles I didn’t know what I wanted. At Eon I had an FD who coached and mentored me and as a result I invested time in myself to become self-aware and they helped me. I started to understand that I could own my own career and my development was down to me. When I moved to RM I took that attitude with me. One thing I have learnt is that no one can tell you your path, everyone is different and my Managers have recognised this. You need to find where you fit and where your skills fit and keep talking to people. I am far more outgoing than I used to be. When I first started my career development, I was afraid of being told no or getting knocked down. I had to have a word with myself, what’s the worst that can happen? I have to also give credit to the people around me who helped me on that journey. We should have the confidence in ourselves but before I was always scared of failure but if you get knocked back you keep trying.

My role now is a Supply Chain Delivery Buyer on the Direct Despatch team. I have my own set of suppliers and we deal with any of the issues that arise with orders that go directly to the supplier. We are the people in the middle and liaise between customer services and the supplier. I have to deal with pricing issues and supply chain issues. You are the first point of call. Mr role requires me to make sure our suppliers are delivering and manage the relationship with them.  Sometimes this does require having the difficult conversations. My background in contact centre and managing customers has been crucial in helping me to achieve what I am achieving now in my new career in procurement.