Welcome back to another edition of our ‘Week in the Life’ series. In these blog posts we’re joined by a member of the Schools Plus team who kindly shares with us a glimpse into their working week. This time we’re joined by Lisa Berryman, our recently promoted Area Manager! Over to Lisa…
Thanks for having me back on the blog! Here is a breakdown of my week just gone as Area Manager for Schools Plus. The week turned out to be a busy one with lots of venue visits and venue manager calls. I’ll take you through it day it by day.
I was still on annual leave on Monday (in beautiful Girona, near Barcelona) so let’s start on Tuesday…
Tuesday
7am – Opened my laptop to an abundance of emails due to being on annual leave for the past four days.
9am – I started the day with a call to my Venue Managers to check in after the weekend and then I had a catch-up call with our Operations Director, Wayne Cryer.
It was a super busy weekend within all our venues, but he had no issues to report which is always welcomed on your first day back!
The rest of my Tuesday was spent replying to the build-up of emails I had from my time away and then calling customers who had enquiries regarding their bookings. I ended up finally closing my laptop around 8pm.
Wednesday
7am – Hit the gym and then back home where my office is based. Today set to be a very busy day visiting venues and catching up with staff in person.
11am – First stop off to Kensington Aldridge Academy to have an update meeting with our client.
3pm – Next stop, onto School 21 in Stratford where I had a training session booked for with my Venue Manager. We talked about bookings and what is happening over the coming weeks.
6pm – I met with staff on shift and went through the operations we provide and observed the shift operations.
8pm – I organised five staff members to arrive for a meeting to discuss operational excellence to gather their feedback on how the venue is running. This is a really good opportunity to meet the teams that work so hard to make our venues run smoothly!
9pm – Head home from Stratford, a 1.5-hour journey.
Thursday
6.30am – Hit the gym for an hour exercise to try and clear my mind and get set for the day!
8am – Open my laptop and catch up on emails that I might not of got the chance to respond to yesterday due to being on the road all day.
11am – Office day with action calls with each of my seven Venue Managers (who between them cover 28 venues!) Each catch up call takes roughly half an hour and involves setting out tasks for the week, checking on active enquiries at the venue as well as making sure they are up to date on important issues such as DBS checks and Safeguarding.
3.30pm – I leave and head to Chiswick School, where I am going to do an unannounced Audit on the venue and the staff on duty.
4.30pm – Arrive at Chiswick school to do my audit and check out the operations at one of our long standing partnership schools. I am pleased to meet with the Cezary who is a supervisor there and he quickly gets me settled to do my audit. I challenge them on the site operations and then I speak to the customers making sure they know the fire drills etc.
6.30pm – I leave Chiswick absolutely chuffed that yet another venue has achieved operational excellence!
Friday
6am – Hit the gym again! National Fitness Day is nearly upon us and I am getting really involved.
8am – Time to write up my reports from last night’s Audit which are sent to the Venue Manager and Operations Director, who will be so pleased to get this positive email first thing especially on a Friday.
The rest of the morning is spent catching up with emails, taking calls from my VM’s and customers. I also finalise everything for our up and coming conference next week which is being hosted at our brand-new partnership school The Harefield Academy.
2pm – Operations Team call over Skype.
4pm –Early finish today…Well it is Friday!
Saturday
7am – Up and ready for another Audit, this time over in East London.
8.30am – Arrive at Chobham Academy in Stratford to run the audit.
10.30am – Leave Stratford and head to School 21 just to say hi to the team and the Venue manager who is working a shift. We lead by example with Venue Managers very involved in their events.
12.30pm – Home time and a well-earned afternoon off. This evening I have a Birthday party, I’m looking forward to dancing the night away!
Sunday
My day off… well if you can call a Gym session, housework, washing and cooking a roast dinner a day off!
Phew that was a busy week!
Thanks to Lisa for joining us on the blog to share a glimpse into her working week! I think everyone would agree that it sounds like Lisa had a very busy and rewarding week. Keep checking the blog for more staff members working weeks in the future.
