Whether we are in the middle of a pandemic or not, my day tends to take a similar shape, however the timings are often very different. Homeworking has given a degree of flexibility to help with my two young children whilst they have been at home due to lockdown restrictions. We welcomed a new addition to the family during lockdown, so although working from home with a new born and a two-year-old isn’t without its challenges, it has been fantastic to spend a little more time with them and see them grow.
The first task in the morning is to prise my eldest child out of bed, then get him dressed, and fed before dropping him at nursery for the day. I generally sit down at the desk in my home office just before nine to start the task of catching up with any emails that may have come since I logged off the previous evening.
This is often followed by calls with the marketing and sales teams to catchup, talk through objectives and any tasks that we have ongoing to make sure that we are on track. These can last anything from a few minutes through to the rest of the morning, depending on what we need to discuss.
Today I have calls with one of our major European distributors to work on further aligning them with Fluids Europe and our brands as we look to develop their capabilities with our products and build more business across Europe.
My afternoon has been reserved for project work. Currently, I have three main projects on my desk; the Front to Back (FTB) segmentation project, which is looking at where our attention should be focused for the future, another project with a distribution partner and the return to the office project.
These are all important to help the business move forward over the next year and maximise all the opportunities we have.
The return to the office project is particularly topical, as it affects everyone in the business. We need to make sure that we balance the safety of the staff with the needs of the business and the new restrictions that we must work within. This is very much a collaborative project and I’m working with the H&S, HR and Operations teams to develop the safest way of getting everyone back to the office. It may be some time before the office is back to the way it was at the start of the year, but we will find the best possible ways of working.
Another area that I have recently started dedicating time in my day to is working on the annual plan. This involves building the vision for where we see the business in 12 months’ time. The FTB process mentioned earlier is used to inform the Annual Plan, so everything links together quite nicely. This is a truly collaborative project, which involves multiple departments across all Fluids Europe businesses. It’s always fantastic to work with people from across the division and see how they operate.
It’s nearly time to pick my eldest up from nursery, so there’s one last check of emails before jumping in the car to collect him. The first part of the evening is spent playing games with the children before putting them both in the bath and doing the chaotic bedtime routine. I use the time afterwards to relax, or, depending on how the day has progressed to finish any outstanding tasks.
