Work Inspiration: Take Two

Once again I have found myself sitting at a desk in the Business in the Community offices, and although I’m not living the same hectic lifestyle as I did back in July, I still love being here. This week I have got more of an opportunity to find out about the different sectors of the charities, and everyone’s different jobs. Although some of the tasks I have been given have been ultimately tedious, the team have made sure I am always engaged in some sort of project.

But what I found most interesting about my interviews was the answer to my last question, ‘What advice would you give to a young person interested in your area of work?’ Unsurprisingly a similar answer resonated through all of my interviews – Motivation and experience.

So I was given the opportunity to interview team members, asking them questions about their role in BITC, their skills and knowledge, and advice they would give to young people interested in their area of work – something that is incredibly important for engaging ‘the facebook generation’.

So apprehensively I began interviewing; starting with Joey Tabone, leader of the START team. I very quickly learnt of START’s function within society. Their focus is to make sustainability simple and getting people to understand doing more with less. In my opinion their aim is to reform the way that people see the environment – people need to be aware of the impacts of importation of food, and transportation, and act on it. By applying the idea of using what you have rather than buying new things, it would be easy to use less but maintain a good lifestyle.

Then, in a fashion that I have learnt is typically BITC, I was thrown into a completely different ballpark with Katherine Sharpe, Accounts Manager.  The proposition between BITC and the Business’ involved is that we offer each of them an Accounts Manager. What I have learnt from Katherine is how important it is that both sides have something to offer and continually working on keeping each other involved.  But the key principal I picked up was about supporting and challenging the Business’- allowing them to be the best they can be.

What I found was most interesting about this task is despite the fact that all the people I interviewed have completely different jobs within the charity, their skill and knowledge base overlapped. The necessity to be able to communicate with a range of people and to know what is going on across Business in the Community.   For example Alice Durand, who deals with the communications within the Prince’s Seeing is Believing campaign, must continually make links between all the different campaigns and note how they progress. Something that, if you’ve ever worked with BITC, you will know is a difficult job. On top of this she must organise visits, to which she invites top level business leaders to look at responsibility issues including education, employability, homelessness, and environment – demonstrating how important it is to know how to deal with different types of people.

Finally I talk to Lou Bruin and Rachael Saunders, who once again added new dimensions to Business in the Community - With their roles of project management versus social equality in employment. Lou explained all about Internal marketing and working with account managers; Once again creating networks over different campaigns and constantly raising awareness about new plans and events. Rachael, on the other hand, is much more campaign based - Working towards removing social discrimination and giving equal opportunities for every potential employee.

In less than an hour of interviews I understood more about this charity than I had previously learnt in a week. There are so many different aspects to BITC that you must learn a bit about a few of them to even begin to understand how diverse its input into community, workplace, market place and environment is.

But what I found most interesting about my interviews was the answer to my last question, ‘What advice would you give to a young person interested in your area of work?’ Unsurprisingly a similar answer resonated through all of my interviews – Motivation and experience. Choose something you love doing and actively look for opportunities to do it, work with a range of people and get used to the working world. It’s easy to sit at home and do nothing, but if these interviews have taught me anything, it’s that you have to have passion for what you’re doing - Whether it’s fighting for a sustainable society or racial and sexual equality in the workplace. Whether it’s the logistics of events or of companies, or whether it’s simply a campaign you feel particularly strongly about. Harness that passion, and use it to get to where you want.

For completely different reasons to before, I find myself wanting to come back to Business in the Community in the near future. There is so much to explore and understand about this diverse charity - and although I have not been running around at the Royal Albert Hall and sitting meetings at number 10 - I continue to feel fully enthused by this mad and wonderful office.