Colleagues Case Studies

Liz Green & Victoria Morrison, Personal Assistant’s to HR Director, HR Operations

"We started job sharing 12 years ago when we were finding it a challenge to balance the demands of our busy full-time roles and being able to spend quality time with our young families.

"Working part-time gives us the flexibility to allow our children to participate in out-of-school activities which otherwise they wouldn't be able to. And it gives us time to be with them as they grow up, which is very important to us as mums," says Victoria.

We've both worked in variety of roles and so we've brought a lot of knowledge and experience to our partnership and are great believers that ‘two heads are better than one'. Our working relationship is built on hard work, communication and trust.

We have different characters, but our range of skills and experience complements one another very well. "Our skills are the same but our strengths differ", explains Liz. "I'm good at numbers so deal with budgets and Victoria is good at minute taking so we tend to have team meetings on her working days.

Our key word for a successful partnership is communication. We have a handover day each week and we talk to each other constantly outside of work so that we deliver a seamless service. If you ask any of our customers, they'll tell you that it doesn't matter who they speak to at whatever point of the week as we're both up-to-date on any issues".

Working in a job-share partnership is a win-win situation for all. The benefits are clear: we're happy with our work-life balance and the Group gets two highly motivated and dedicated members of staff with a wealth of experience and knowledge between them, and who cover each other's holidays and sick leave."

Kiran Bali MBE JP, Senior Developer, IT

Kiran uses her language skills by translating conversations and information for colleagues and customers into Punjabi, Urdu and Hindi.

My day job is working in IT. But on top of that I also help out on the Switchboard system, speaking to customers who have language issues.

When a customer rings the helpline and has difficulties because English is not their first language, or when a customer goes into a branch and a colleague cannot fully understand their requirements, then at this point I receive a phone call asking for my assistance to translate. I've also translated letters and documents in my own time.

I've been helping out on the Switchboard for around 10 years now, and talking directly with the customer in their own language can be really valuable. It gives our customers confidence that we understand their needs and are doing our best to fulfil them.

I feel that it's an important provision that allows customers to reap the benefits of our products and services even when they don't speak English as their first language.

It would be ideal to have a colleague in each branch who was able to speak the main language of the ethnic minority groups in the local community. But where this isn't feasible, the work I do to help out on the Switchboard sends a message to our customers that we do value them.

Using my language skills is how I go the extra mile and make my unique contribution."