After 18 years of working in home-based child care, while also raising my four children, I decided it was time for a change in career direction, so in early 2001 I commenced working in the financial services industry. Initially, I worked as a sales consultant for Tower Insurance NZ and found I enjoyed the customer interaction and the friendly rivalry a contact centre provides with work colleagues, creating an environment that motivated me to exceed my sales targets consistently.
In September 2001, my husband and I enjoyed a brief holiday in sunny Queensland. In fact, it made such a great impression on us that we ended up relocating the family to Brisbane in November 2002. This move gave me a further opportunity to rethink my career path but, having enjoyed the past two years working in the finance industry, I decided that this truly was the right direction for me. I obtained a role as a bank teller with Suncorp in January 2003. I continued to enjoy the face to face customer service aspect of working in a branch and, by 2005, I had managed to secure a role as branch manager for Suncorp in their North Lakes branch.
When thinking back on my career path during this time I realised that many of the skills I had attained early on while working with children and their parents were now assisting me in my role as Branch Manager. Skills such as communication, patience, resolving disputes, personalised service, empowering people, empathy, genuinely caring for people while also managing things such as poor behaviour and underperformance.
At this point in time, I felt I had reached many of my aspirations within Suncorp’s branches, and decided it was time to see how I may further my career within head office. In January 2006, I acquired a new role in Brisbane CBD as team leader for the home lending documentation team. Over the next 12 years, I worked in various roles from team leader to the manager, and executive manager within Suncorp’s home lending operational teams. Each of these roles brought new complexities, including the ability to identify and implement process improvements, enhancing my time management skills when juggling the needs of stakeholders and my growing number of direct reports, learning how to lead leaders, to problem solve, as well as managing the daily operational requirements of the department.
Throughout the duration of my career, I have continued to change and grow as an individual. I’ve learned how to lead leaders successfully, how to coach people by asking questions instead of telling them what I believed they should do. I learned the skill of active listening and leaving my agenda out of the equation. I’m able to empower people to take risks and try something different to get a better outcome for both customers and the business, which I find extremely rewarding. I’ve also learned that the best people to understand the blockers and the solutions are the people working hands-on in the business.
It’s wonderful watching people try new things and even if they fail, they are learning that this is better than doing nothing, because they have taken ownership of the problem, taken away new learnings and are ready to try something different.
Towards the end of 2018, a new opportunity arose for me to work for NAC Consulting. To this day, the role excites me as it’s utilising all the skills and experience I have gained over the years. It’s provided me with the opportunity to share the things I have learned while working with team leaders, managers and executive managers, guiding and helping them to create a culture of engagement, ownership, collaboration and continual process improvement.
About the Author
Comentários