How long have you been working for the Kelly Group?
I joined Kelly Group as an engineer for the Openreach Service Delivery contract in 2016.
What positions have you held throughout your tenure?
I was shortly promoted to team manager and 6 months or so after that promotion, Jason Chandler asked me to step up as a project manager on an exciting new contract which was the beginning of our partnership with CityFibre. The CityFibre contract started with me and two crews working under Jason to connect CityFibre’s first customers to their newly built full-fibre network in Milton Keynes.
As the contract started to expand our small team was slowly working through cities including Peterborough, Aberdeen, and Bournemouth for another year.
Once the contract became a well-established project, I moved on to fulfilling the responsibilities of regional manager for the South and Midlands under the guidance and leadership of Paul Beardmore.
What does a typical week look like?
I start my week by reviewing our previous weeks' performance and highlighting any areas in need of attention to my team managers. Me and Team Managers will then produce a plan for the week to assist any new engineers, address any performance issues and make sure we are prepared for the next stage in expansion. The CityFibre contract has been developing and expanding for 3 years now and the plans are in place for us to grow even more so there is no slowing down. After this is complete, my main responsibility is to report for CityFibre on the performance and progress we make during the week.
Our team work very closely with CityFibre and currently everyone is an integral part of planning for recruiting to fulfil the goals of our expansion plan for 2022. All three regional managers work closely with Paul Beardmore (General Manager) and as a team, we try to plan proactively for new cities which are about to be released or new ISPs that may be joining the CityFibre network.
This year we have plans in place for our biggest expansion phase yet with plans to increase headcount in our most established cities as well as the newer cities yet to be released. With the size of expansion planned, we have a need for a new back office to support our field engineers which includes a dispatch department, a help desk department along with an MDUIOD and ERS (faults) department to support the important work of upgrading homes to full-fibre.
Do you have any set goals in mind for the next 12 months?
I spend most of my free time horse riding. I have a horse called Darby (show name: cruising rock) who I am looking forward to competing this year. I have competed in the past with different horses, but I haven’t had the chance to compete with Darby yet as I have spent the past year focusing on his fitness and wellbeing making sure he is up to the job following a couple of injuries in his earlier years.
He is now healthy and fit and the next step in his rehab journey is easing back into competitions again. He is very well bred and naturally talented however he has a very energetic personality which can make training him quite difficult, so I have also worked on improving his behaviour over the past twelve months. He is now more confident in himself than ever. We went to our first low-level competition at
the end of January and came home with 1st and 3rd place in both our classes, so I am happy with that as a start!
What three words best describe your role?
- Challenging
- Adapting
- Innovating
Before working for Kelly Group, what was the most unusual or interesting job you have ever had?
Before joining Kelly Group, I was a maintenance technician in Dartmoor Zoo, which might sound familiar from the movie ‘We Bought a Zoo’. It was based on the amazing story about the owner who purchased the zoo to save these animals and he did a fantastic job. My job consisted of building and maintaining wolf/lion/tiger dens, occasionally training our bears and most importantly, making sure all fencing, and locks were sound and secure! The company has now become a registered charity, and it came a long way since.
If you could switch your job with anyone else for one week, whose job would you want to experience?
At the beginning of my career journey, when I completed my education, I worked as a yard manager for an Olympic horse rider in Germany. I would like to switch jobs with her and become an Olympic horse rider. It would be a dream come true!
What advice do you have for new Kelly Group engineers coming into the business?
Learn to walk before you run. The natural flow of this business will pick you up and have you running in no time. Focus on getting the basics right and don’t take on too much by yourself. All our engineers spend a lot of time working independently in the field but you’re not alone. We have a huge support system built for you so please reach out and ask for help if you need it.
Can you tell us about the support channels that are available for our engineers?
Engineers have a wide range of support available from the first day they join the Group such as new to field support managers, field support teams and buddy engineers. As part of our expansion plan for 2022 new engineers will also have new to field integration managers helping them settle in and getting all their work devices set up using systems such as IFS, completing vehicle submission sheets etc.
We are also planning on setting up a dedicated back-office helpline which if managers are busy engineers can ring up asking for help. I also don’t have a problem if engineers are contacting me for support if they can’t reach their managers.
What 3 words would your friends/family use to describe you?
- Proactive
- Opinionated
- Driven
What is your proudest moment?
Whilst I am very proud of how far the CityFibre contract has come since we started, my proudest moment would be when completed my education and got a job. I had to have my riding assessed by some of the top horse riders and trainers in the country and I was lucky enough to be selected to go over to Germany and work for one of their Olympic riders – Ulla Salzgeber.
At the time, she was also training many of the top French, Belgium, and UK horse riders so I was surrounded by the crème de le crème of the horse world.
