Housing Services Administrator 

A lot of internal training can help you develop your skills and knowledge even when it's not strictly relevant to your role.  If you discuss what your interests are with your manager, you may find that they'll be very supportive.  Mine always have been.  

I would say to anyone: don't be afraid to just ask.

Tell us about your career path. 

I started at Queen Mary in late 2010, initially as a temporary technician in the Copy Shop, which was the rebranded reprographics department.  In early 2011, the role had been made permanent; I applied and was successful. I stayed there in the Copy Shop until April 2019.  In my role I did a lot of the physical work of printing and finishing (such as folding or trimming printed materials), but I also took care of the bulk of the administrative work: dealing with customer records, invoicing and so on.  

I've now moved over to Housing Services, into my current role in administration.  In Housing Services we take applications for student accommodation, and we allocate the rooms.  My team is there before they move in and when they're preparing to move out, and we handle the financial side of things while they're here.  I provide administration support to the Housing Officers and our management.

Was there a change in grades between the two roles? 

There was no step up within the Copy Shop to the next grade; the manager's role would be two grades up, which I felt was too big a jump.  I decided to go forward by moving into a more general role within Queen Mary, which gives me more skills and therefore more options in the future. 

How are you finding the differences in the culture between the two teams? 

Initially, it was quite stark.   The Copy Shop is a noisy place: the folding machines and printers and other equipment can make quite a racket.  The dress code reflected the physical work: we wore branded polo shirts, and canvas type trousers.  The atmosphere was professional but relaxed. When I came over to housing services, I found that it's much quieter and there's less activity; people are sitting at their desks most of the time. The phone's ringing and meetings happen, but the reduction in sound was quite noticeable.  It took me a little bit of time to get used to. 

In terms of your career, what do you think you've found most useful in terms of training, support or people you've had contact with? 

So in the in the Copy Shop, it was very much on-the-job training. Obviously, we did the mandatory training that all staff are obliged to do. Beyond that, if the manager decided to buy a new piece of equipment, we'd need to be trained how to use it.  Because of that I developed a lot of skills and learned things that I never thought I'd know. 

But things like that are only transferable to other printing environments. Now that I've come over to Housing Services, I'm doing internal training and training through the Association for Student Residential Accommodation.  I'm learning things about, for example, Agresso and MySIS which would be useful on internal applications to other areas in Queen Mary.  I'm getting a lot more broadly transferable skills. 

Have you encountered any kind of any sort of barriers or problems, when it comes to furthering your career? 

To go up a grade can be quite difficult.  There's no specific barrier, but I found that from a Grade 3 there weren't many Grade 4 roles I could apply for, and when I was looking a couple of years ago, it seemed to be quite a jump to Grade 5 managerial roles.  

The advice I got after not succeeding at a couple of Grade 4 applications was to move to another Grade 3, and get some more transferable skills so that my future applications will look better. 

You started as a temporary member of staff and now you've been here for ten years and counting.  What's the appeal of Queen Mary? 

I've never even thought about leaving. It's convenient for me in terms of where I live - I can cycle to work. I like the people here, I've always thought that the salary is competitive, and the pension and the annual leave offering is excellent. 

I like the stability of it. Previous to Queen Mary, I'd been moving around quite a lot and never really settled anywhere. But Queen Mary just felt right. I don't think about changing now.

So that's been the last 10 years; thinking about the next kind of three to five years, what are your plans? 

Things seem a little bit different now. Obviously, it will depend on on what happens to Queen Mary over the next few years - if student numbers go back up to normal by this time next year, if COVID-19 is all forgotten about, then there will be a point when I'll look to move along.  But I don't have any set date and I'm not desperate. 

If an opportunity to move into a Housing Advisor role came up, I will definitely be interested in that, because I like the team.  But for the moment, I'm valuing the stability in uncertain times.  

I'm still not going to consider leaving Queen Mary. 

And so my last question, but maybe the most important. What advice would you give to other people who are looking to develop themselves? 

Sign up for the Organisational & Professional Development newsletter, definitely.  A lot of internal training can help you develop your skills and knowledge even when it's not strictly relevant to your role.  If you discuss what your interests are with your manager, you may find that they'll be very supportive.  Mine always have been.  

For example, I recently did training on environmental sustainability, even though it isn't really relevant to my day to day work.  I found it very interesting, and now we have someone on the team who knows about the subject. Pursuing subjects because of a personal interest can create benefits to your colleagues now, and it might be important to your own progress in the future. 

I would say to anyone: don't be afraid to just ask.