I never thought that, after completing a degree in fashion design, I would end up finding a job I love in financial services. My current role involves managing our internal knowledge base, which is basically a search engine and frequently-asked-questions area for anything relating to our Defined Contribution pension schemes. This helps our operational teams to access the information they need quickly and streamline the customer experience. This means I get to combine the knowledge I gained from years of supporting our customers on the helpline with my passion for being creative.
I originally joined L&G as a stop gap, while I was trying to figure out what my next steps would be. By that time I’d decided I no longer wanted a career in fashion. I had worked on helplines before and a friend who worked at L&G referred me because they thought I would enjoy the supportive culture. Working on a helpline seemed like an unusual choice for me as I have struggled with anxiety for most my life. But, with the support of the team, my amazing manager and the wellbeing programme at L&G, I have found that the experience has enabled me to grow. I’m now much more comfortable in difficult situations and more at ease with being myself.
I think this is probably one of the most surprising things about L&G for me. I never expected to feel like that working in a big corporate. I didn’t think I would matter as a person but here, even the people at the top know your name. Regardless of your level of seniority, they genuinely care about your ideas, which has truly made me feel valued. In fact, I helped to create the pilot for the new knowledge base for all areas to use and make it one centralised system instead of many, which led to my current role.
"I didn’t think I would matter as a person but here, even the people at the top know your name. Regardless of your level of seniority, they genuinely care about your ideas, which has truly made me feel valued."
"If I could give one piece of advice to my younger self it would just be to take time to enjoy things more."
My current role has been a real career highlight, as I have been able to get involved in shaping it from scratch. This involved helping the project team get the funding and designing the pages for the product. I also created the content and was responsible for seeing how it enabled our operational teams to resolve customer queries quickly, improving the level of support they were able to give. I am very driven by making improvements to the customer experience. Being able to display the processes our advisers need to follow in a simple, visual way means that all departments have visibility of each other’s processes. That ensures we can guide the customer successfully through their journey from end to end. So, I was even more thrilled when the system was highlighted during one of our recent external reviews as being innovative and among one of the best used internally by a company.
If I could give one piece of advice to my younger self it would just be to take time to enjoy things more. I am always going a million miles per hour and sometimes I don’t even stop to realise just how much I have achieved in the process. This is why I quite enjoy the annual review process here at L&G, because it enables me to take time out to reflect on what I have done well and also, what challenges I want to take on in the next year. People who are driven by improving themselves, tend to do very well at L&G as we actively support people investing in their skills and give them time to learn both individually and through our academy. I know this is just the start of my journey at L&G, but already I feel like I have learned so much and look forward to growing more and more in the future with the support of the teams around me.
