Tag Archive: Work


Two weeks in NEW Role and the power of Personal Brand

Following on from The upside and downside of working for a Large corporate, I decided to take an extra week off over the easter break. Prior to the Easter break I had nine job leads, all with issues, location (leeds, brentwood, hemel hempstead or ipsitch) or yet to be approved budgets….

Returning to work on the 16th April, with a somewhat blase attittude, “lets just see just how good my personal brand really is”.

I have always been sceptical about “Personal Brand”. Yeh Richard Branson, Alan Sugar and Steve Jobs are all household Names / Brands, but after being pushed into the Transition Centre I was convinced I was just a number, in fact, a nine digit number starting 7011……

For years I had been trying to do all the right things with the right people, demonstrating business benefit in most of what I have delivered. YES… Some things I could have done better, some things I could of pushed harder, but I had never seen much in the way of evidence that I had a personal brand to speak of, let alone a good one. NO promotions, NO decent pay rises etc etc

To my amazement, on the 11th April, (2nd day as a re-deployee) I get a message from an old colleague and friend, “Did I want a post in his team?” After some discussion it transpired that senior managers in his part of the business were determined not to let me go, to the point there created a post for me. They had heard I have been moved to the Transition Centre, and they were seriously concerned about the impact that would have on parts of the business. My first re action was , “How can one man (number) be so important??”, but I accepted the offer of a new role.

So Two weeks with same desk, same Pay, same responsibilities, different Manager, different dept, different line of business later, here we are. I am a member of a new team, which is a very eclectic mix of people, from Geneva, Exeter, Edinburgh, Ipswich, and now Gloucester. So far (two weeks in) it has been thoroughly enjoyable working in a well-managed, well-motivated and knowledgeable team.

Now all I need to do is shake the “anger”, “frustration” and “confusion” that the four week journey, towards, through and out of the other side of the transition centre has left me with??.

Working for a large corporate as I do, has many upsides

  • Good Pay
  • Great flexibility
  • Agile/home working
  • Great Leave entitlement
  • I also get free broadband
  • and in this case a corporate that does not do compulsory redundancy

However there are some downsides too (driven by trying to maintain shareholder value)

  • Many many business transformations (re-orgs)
  • Many Cost reduction challenge/initiatives
  • with re-orgs & cost come staff ?head count challenges

Did I mention they don’t do compulsory redundancy. well that is one saving grace

So as of 10th April i am classed as a redployee, in the “transition centre” where I still get paid for looking for an internal post, re-training is available, so I could take the opportunity to gain some decent Cisco, Oracle or Linux skills. Time will tell.

On the plus side, looking forward to a NEW challenge and NOT collecting a P45….