Team Leader, Customer Services
E.ON

Emma S

0:00:02 Well I’m Emma S. I’m a team manager and I work at E.ON in Customer Service. I have a team of 11 people currently. That does vary and I look after everything to do with their work life and sometimes their home life as well. Really anything that will make the team member’s life better, easier and more effective so that ultimately the customer gets the best experience.

00:00:27 What I was like at school, I was certainly less confident than I am now. A lot less confident. So I really kind of doubted my abilities at school and what I could achieve. I did talk a lot but often that was to perhaps cover up nervousness or something else that was going on, or it was because I didn’t understand what was going on or the lesson that was being taught or I was bored, then I would just talk a lot to cover that up.

00:00:52 I think actually the person that inspired probably was my dad. He was very much, ‘you know what, you can do, if you want to do that role, you do it. You know, you really go into whatever you want, and if you want to do it, you go out and do it’.

00:01:08 I was working part time at Tesco whilst I did my A-levels and didn’t really know what I wanted to do. I think if anything, I was leaning towards being a teacher, a primary school teacher. I applied for university when I was doing my A levels and I actually got a place to go into teacher training, but at that point there were a lot of changes going on in my life and I wasn’t really sure if that was what I wanted to do so I decided to defer it for a year and in that time I then got a full time job at Tesco on the customer service desk.

00:01:40 And I think really from there I sort of realised that I was enjoying the life of work. I sort of looked at my life and thought, ‘well where do I want to be if I’m going to be working?’ and I set myself a goal, I wanted to become a manager in Tesco by the time I was 21 and I actually achieved that. So it was just before my 21st birthday that I had my first management position within Tesco and that was what was known then as a training and development manager and I was supporting other managers within their role running training sessions and things like that for three Tesco stores.

00:02:17 And that was great. I was really kind of pleased with that role. I loved doing that role, training and developing people. But they actually got rid of that role at the time and then I had to make a decision as to what I did next.

00:02:31 My only choice was really store manager or area manager and I didn’t really want to go into those positions. So at that point, although I loved my job, I decided to look elsewhere and at that point I saw an advert for Powergen. And I applied to Powergen for what was known then as a team coordinator role.

00:02:54 Probably the lowest point in my career was when I decided to leave Tesco. I kind of struggled with that decision because I did enjoy huge aspects of my job and I loved that hustle and bustle of a store and the not knowing what was going to happen next. I loved that aspect of the job. So it was very hard for me to make that decision to leave a company that I had worked for for nine years to kind of say, ‘actually I’m going to go somewhere else’. And now I’m really pleased that I did make that decision because actually I think I’m, you know, I’m a better person for it. I love the role that I do here now. I’m really committed to Eon but I think that was a really tough decision and I struggled with that one.

00:03:36 I think I’m quite motivated in one way to achieve what I want to achieve and I do—obviously like anybody—I do feel knocks, you know, knocks and setbacks and for a while it, I do kind of need that time to think, ‘okay, how am I going to deal with this? What am I going to, you know, what do I want to achieve? How am I going to approach this?’ But then I think as soon as I’ve worked that out, it’s a case of, ‘right, yeah. Let’s get on with it, let’s go onto the next thing and carry on doing what I need to do’. So I think for me, I just kind of have that time to think and go, ‘yeah, take stock. What is it I really want to do? And then go for it”.

ENDS