Learning and Development Officer
Chaucer Insurance

Nemesia W

00:00:02 My name’s Nemesia W, and I’m a Learning and Development Officer. A Learning and Development Officer is a trainer, but not just a trainer, they’re more concerned with the development of the people. When people have actually had their, what we call appraisal – so when they’re appraised by their managers, there’ll be an area where training’s set out. And so what we do is collate all that information, and then we make sure that people get the training that they need.

00:00:30 I think what I enjoy about my job the most is the people – people satisfaction. At the end of a course, or when someone’s passed an exam, when you’ve spent all those sort of man hours helping them through, is you know when they come up to you and just say thank you.

00:00:45 I’d always wanted to be a primary school teacher, I think from the age of well 11, as soon as I went to my new school, right the way through to about two weeks before I left. When I was younger I didn’t really – I didn’t have a lot of time to have a lot of dreams, I was a sports person, so that took up a lot of my time. And career-wise I wasn’t really thinking about that, I was just focusing from competition to competition that I was involved in.

00:01:09 I was a gymnast, when I was younger. Competed on the floor area, beam area, asymmetric bars and the vault. I decided to give it up – it wasn’t a decision really it just – it was an overnight thing. It was just something that I just woke up the next morning and thought – I don’t want to do this anymore. When I used to do gymnastics it was tougher, it was tougher then, and basically if I did something wrong, then I was told off for it. I was perhaps hit for it as well. It’s just the way it was. In hindsight if I’d thought about it, I should have left where I was, and gone elsewhere. But when you’re twelve you don’t think like that, and you think, no I’m going to run away from it. So I stopped doing it.

00:01:52 When I was at school I think I was a quite disciplined student. I wouldn’t say I enjoyed – I enjoyed learning, but it didn’t – I wasn’t one of these people that could leave something two weeks before an exam, and then cram it, because my mind didn’t work that way. I knew that I had to work, and so I just used to draw myself up timetables and say right, I’m going to study this day, and that’s how I did it.

00:02:13 I didn’t stay on and do A-Levels. I think I just got to the point where I thought, d’you know I’ve really – I’ve actually had enough now of studying, I want to go and do something – I want to go and get a job. At the time, it was banking and insurance which were the leading market roles. Where I lived, we had quite a large insurance company, so I telephoned them and I think just by luck the Director was in, and they put me through to the Director. So I had a chat with the Director, and he just said, come in and see me. So I went in to see him that afternoon, and I came away with a job. It was a Trainee Claims Handler, they call it a Trainee Claims Handler, for an insurance company that did all aspects of insurance basically.

00:02:56 I’ve achieved what I looked for when I was a lot younger. I wanted to be a Team Leader role, I wanted to be a senior role, to be taken seriously. I wanted to achieve my exams in insurance, and I did that. And I did it actually very quickly, I didn’t realise, and it was only by chance I fell into these particular roles, I just happened to be the right person at the right time.

00:03:19 I suppose future hopes – it’s an awkward one, I don’t – I am target driven, but not so far in advance, because next week something could change, which sends your direction somewhere completely different. I mean I’m not interested inspiring to be a Manager, or Director, or anything like that, it’s more personal development I’d say, and helping others develop.

00:03:43 I think what’s important for me is job satisfaction. It’s not necessarily meeting targets that people have set for me, it’s probably my own targets that I set. You know it’s not about nine to five, come in, do my job, go home. It’s about what can I do during that day that motivates me really.

00:03:58 ENDS