Are you office-based or do you work remotely?
Office Based although travel to other offices, meeting venues and locations throughout the business is expected and relished by me.

What personal qualities does a good Centre Manager require?
I believe one of the first qualities is to be a “people person”, to be committed to my staff and learners in order to ensure the delivery is of a quality standard. I also believe attention to detail, and the ability to change focus in line with contract priorities is key to the continued development within the role and subsequent improvements we can make.

What do you enjoy most about your job?
The fact that no two days are ever the same and the opportunity to be heavily involved in influencing developments within the region and the business on an ongoing basis

How have you developed and grown in the role?
As the centre has grown and with it the staff volumes, I feel I have developed my overall knowledge of the industry and of the personalities working within it. This enables me, together with the management team, to ensure that whilst the work done by my staff is inevitably challenging it is also exceptionally rewarding for them.

What do you see as the biggest challenges of your job?
The biggest challenges are to continue the extensive growth we have achieved over the past two years, whilst thinking strategically of where we need to change focus in an ever changing industry.

Can you recall your proudest moment in your job?
My proudest moment and biggest success in addition to my appointment was at the end of my second year as Centre Manager, achieving a 50% growth in occupancy whilst driving up our quality as a centre since I took over.  Although this had occurred over a two year period, it confirmed the considerable sustained progress we had achieved as a team in a relatively short period of time.

 

A day in my life….
I feel I’m in the enviable position of managing a large, highly committed and experienced team and therefore each day brings with it exciting opportunities for continued improvement which I feel the need to address literally on a daily basis. The average day therefore consists of monitoring and addressing the Key Performance Indicators we strive towards whilst also looking at how each individual can be supported to achieve and exceed targets to benefit the individual, centre and company.  This for me is done by utilising the MIS systems, the quality of which you would expect from a company of our size and therefore ensures that timely information is freely available in order to manage both individual and collective performance against contract. Together with the day to day running of the business centre I also spend a great deal of time working with partnerships across the region and also attending consortia and LSC meetings to ensure meantime information is available to my team.