Insight to work with London Borough of Southwark!

After bringing you up to speed with who I am this month, I’ve got the taste for writing another blog. 

One of the big things on the radar when I joined Insight back in April was the potential of working on a large Management Development Programme (MDP) for the L.B Southwark.  During the first couple of meetings I had with John and Terry I realised winning this contract meant a huge amount to them.  Not only in terms of actual long term work, but the challenges it brings with it. Launching and delivering a programme which would shape the future leaders of such a prestigious London Borough is after all a huge responsibility.  The amount of trust an organisation places in a provider on awarding a contract is huge.  MDP’s are a chance to shape and influence the ongoing management strategy for years to come.  How the programme is delivered directly impacts the communities through the managers and supervisors.  It really feels like we make a difference. 

It doesn’t matter how much we would like to do the programme we have to win the contract by proving how Insight can deliver what the organisation is looking for.  My understanding of the tendering process is limited, but I know it can be very complex and involves getting all your ducks in row.  There’s the writing of expressions of interest documents, which have to convey how we can best fit the needs of the specification, what we can offer and how we can give them an MDP to be proud of.  There are evaluations, interviews and presentations to master.  Suffice to say it’s a team effort in collating everything in time to submit it. 

I was delighted that John and Terry included me on this tender as a member of the delivery team.  I was presented on paper to the stakeholder board as Project/Programme Manager, ILM Administration and tutor support.  A huge honour to be such as lynchpin in the support functions of delivering the programme.

After waiting a few weeks the news came that we had been shortlisted to the final two and the board wished to meet as many of the delivery team as possible.  I won’t pretend that I wasn’t just a little bit nervous about meeting the board.  If something stupid came out of my mouth, I would’ve hated to have cost us the contract.  John and Terry, of course, made sure we were all very well briefed and calmed the jitters.

I have to say I really enjoyed meeting the stakeholder board; they went out of their way to make it informal, it felt more like a focus group rather than an interview. It was really nice to see some old faces too.  Bob Chapple and Ruth Dover, both of who I’d worked with on various projects 7 years ago were at the meeting.  They helped to calm my nerves as well.  Laura did a sterling job of broaching the topic of equalities and inclusion, showing a video which went down really well with the panel. On the whole the meeting went well, but it was hard to gauge how we’d done.  Now we had to wait for the decision.

Thankfully Southwark didn’t keep us waiting too long and gave us the amazing news they were awarding us 2/3 of the contract.  To undertake the MDP for the Supervisors and First Line Managers, in my opinion the most exciting groups.  Training grass roots managers quite often means employing a wide range of techniques to have a real impact on culture change.  You can see immediate effects in the workplace on service delivery and in feedback from the communities they serve. 

Another huge win for us was the entire MDP is to be accredited by the ILM.  This means around 300 supervisors, first line and middle managers will all come out of the MDP with a tangible usable qualification.

This of course means for me a lot of work over the summer months getting to grips with project management.  But I do love to organise and plan!!

The other 1/3 of the contract was awarded to an organisation called Cygnet.  So a new challenge will be working in partnership to deliver a cohesive programme across the 3 levels of manager.

Exciting things on the horizon and great news I’m sure you’ll agree.

~ Vikki

A Brit Abroad!

Introducing Vikki, the newest addition to our Team!

Most of us at some point in our lives have wondered what it would be like to work and live abroad.  Interestingly a study by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) identified that 80% of recent university leavers want to work abroad at some point in their career.  When you are young with relatively few ties, working abroad can have huge benefits to your burgeoning career, giving you not only precious foreign language skills, but allowing you to live your personal dreams.  

Talking from personal experience, deciding to uproot your life when you have more commitments can be an emotional rollercoaster.  Let me share my story...

I was working for a local authority in a highly stressful role involving the Equal Pay Review for about 6000 employees.  We were lucky, my husband and I had good jobs, a house, a beautiful son and we lived in a beach town on the south coast.  Most would think our life was perfect, and to a degree it was.  Although I had always felt the need to spread my wings. Unlike a number of my friends and family I didn't jump on the gap year bandwagon and backpack my way across the places I'd seen in the Leonardo DiCaprio's film The Beach.  So the travel bug came back to bite me, and boy did it bite hard.  My husband worked for JPMorgan and after years of not quite making the progress he deserved, he approached a few contacts in the States (networking skills fully deployed!).  The testing of the waters paid off and after some internal wrangling, a trip to the US Embassy and 4 months we boarded the plane to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

It's not as easy as you think to just apply for a job abroad, especially in the USA. JPMorgan sponsored my husband and arranged for all the Visas and Embassy paperwork.  They even assigned a Relocation Specialist, although we had very minimal contact with them, it was nice to know we had one.  

Hurdle #1

One thing we could've done more advice about was relocation costs.   If you are lucky enough to be offered a role abroad, make sure you do your homework on how much it costs to move belongings , visit the country to look at housing and set up costs for renting a place to live.  My advice, whatever figure they offer you, go back and ask for double the amount. 

Hurdle #2

Swallow the cost and take up international bank account.  One little known fact, no matter how good your credit rating is, it is NOT transferable to the USA.  You arrive as a credit ghost.  The USA runs on credit, you cannot get any form of credit card, mobile phone contract or get decent rates on car insurance unless your credit rating is good.

The only way to get a good credit rating is to get credit and you can't get any credit without a credit rating - chicken and egg spring to mind.  At least with an international account you can get a credit card and access to expert help understanding the mountains of tax forms which are different for each state by the way!

Hurdle #3

HealthCare - yes we all moan about the NHS, you won't after spending anytime in the US healthcare system.  How anyone affords to pay for critical care I do not know. If your job comes with Health Insurance, find out someone who can explain in layman's terms what it covers and how much it costs.  Don't fall in to the trap of paying the lowest amount - you'll regret it when you get a bill from your doctor asking for $200 just for looking at your sore throat last week.  

Hurdle #4

Driving - do not expect US driver to wave you through a junction, give way (yield) or wait and allow you to parallel park on a main road.  It will not happen, you will find yourself wishing for British drivers, yes even the ones in white vans.

I could go on, but I may turn my experiences in to a best seller featuring starcrossed lovers with a fondness for dunkin donuts and S&M. Giving away all my material would be best seller suicide.  So I'm moving on to something more constructive...

The Workplace

Working in the US is very different to working in the UK. However, thank your lucky stars for your 20 days paid holiday and bank holidays.  In the US the average worker gets 10 days paid holiday in addition to the US bank holidays,  however not all of them are considered 'official' days by all companies so be warned.  You don't get paid sick leave, you have to earn it.  Some organisations may give you a bank of sick days (up to six days and 2 personal days.  Oh and on another note Boxing Day does not exist in the US, so booking it off is a must!

The workers in the US are broken up in to 2 main categories by the FLSA (Fair Labor Standards Act) - Non Exempt (those who are paid an hourly rate and are eligible for overtime of 1.5 over 40 hours a week) and Non-Exempt (those who are paid a guaranteed salary and are not eligible for any overtime).

The rules about which jobs fail in to which categories are very complicated, but in general there are three typical categories of exempt job duties, called "executive," "professional," and "administrative."  It is likely as a graduate or professional you will be an exempt employee.  It is usually expected for an exempt employee to work 40+ hours a week, on average the real time spent at work is 55 hours.   Long days...

Most companies seem to pay bi weekly or weekly rather than monthly, personally I think this is a great advantage over the mostly monthly pay of the UK.  It allows for easier budgeting and not having to stretch money to the end of the month is always great.

Language

Be prepared to be asked the inevitable questions, "Are you from England?" and "Do you live in London?"  I would strongly suggest referring all UK geographical locations to their proximity to London.  On the other hand having an English accent works wonders for your profile.  People remember you, they’re interested and engaged.  This can be turned to your advantage, it’s a icebreaker of the biggest magnitude.  A standout accent can attract positive and negative attention so you should be aware of how and when to use it.

The People

On the whole we met the warmest people and made some amazing lifelong friends.  I think Americans get a bit of a raw deal; British folk tend to think of them of brash and arrogant.  I’m sure our reputation is no better.  There are always bad apples in a cart, accepting people for who they are is our biggest challenge as human beings.  Not everyone will get along, but that’s life.

So you’re probably reading this and thinking we didn’t enjoy our time in the US.  On the contrary, we are richer for the experience, more rounded and most importantly we followed our dreams.  Although I did rather miss chocolate hobnobs more than I thought I would.

~ Vikki