Your colleagues
What's it like to work here? Meet a few of your new colleagues
Ravi Chaudhuri
Team Leader
Plan Referrals, Operations
11 years service!
My average day...
...starts at 10am and I am here till 8pm so, first thing I do is make myself a quick cup of tea! Then I catch up with my team of advisors and peers, making sure they are all ok. I have 9 advisors in my team, and we have 27 advisors in the department.
Checking emails and my outlook calendar to see what meetings I have; I start to plan my day. I catch up with Real time and Resource team to see how we are performing for the day and the week and I support colleagues by being available on floor and helping with any queries and questions regarding process & advice. I also monitor Service Levels/Call queues on Inbound lines to make sure colleagues are available to help and support the clients who are calling us.
Daily tasks often include conducting 121’s/review meetings with advisors, preparing and conducting Health meetings with advisors as well as HR meetings for multiple reasons.
I love going to Gym during lunch. I am bit of fitness freak, so I do cherish my lunch times at the gym and try not to miss this. It also allows me to take time out from my busy day to have a break and recharge giving myself a bit of reflection time. Straight back into it afterwards doing Quality Monitoring which means listening to calls and providing call feedback to my team and coaching them.
How did I get here?
I started as a Debt Advisor in Debt Advice Services 11 years ago. I came from a background of Banking, so it was such a feel-good factor to join the Charity and being able to help and support our clients. I did move departments internally as a Debt Advisor to Client Support in Aftercare and into Advice Plus. This allowed me to look at and understand the client journey.
Then I started to put a PDP together with the help and guidance of my Team Leader and department Manager. Volunteering and putting myself forward for extra tasks where possible I helped and supported the department and my colleagues as much as I could. I then got the opportunity to coach advisors in the Academy and this is where my love for the Team Leader role started to grow. Quite quickly, I knew this was what I wanted to do.
I applied for the first Learning to Lead Team Leader Development Programme at the Charity and was delighted to be accepted onto it. I was on the programme for 12 months and after successful completion, I secured the Team Leader role in Advice Plus.
Anyone looking to progress at the Charity – my advice is be dedicated, be proactive and lead by example. There are lots of opportunities at StepChange for development and progression.
I am busy with...
I have an upcoming project which will be quite big for us is Plan Referrals merge with Debt Advice and colleagues in Plan Referrals being upskilled to End to End Debt Advice. This will involve advisors in Plan Referrals being trained and upskilled to take End to End calls. The project will involve arranging academies, training and coaching and supporting colleagues through this change and journey.
I love it here because...
The Charity’s vision! It’s also a great feeling helping and supporting colleagues to contribute towards this. The people/colleagues are a definite positive – I have met a lot of amazing people at the Charity and everyone is nice and supportive.
