Brian's story: Transferring Success in Career Change

Can you share a bit about your career journey at YBS so far? (For example, your journey through redeployment, what role are you doing now)

I started with YBS in Jan 1998 – as a management trainee in Glasgow branch. My progression over that time has been Branch Manager (Glasgow), Share Plans Manager (Bradford), Area Manager (Scotland), Regional Manager (Scotland/North England), Senior Manager Retail Network overseeing all branches and agencies – the role I do now. I also had a 18 month spell as Director of Retail to cover absence and recruitment

How did you identify your transferrable skills to help find a new role?

Communication and influencing skills – all the technical stuff you can learn but mastering soft skills means you can do just about anything. You can teach a parrot to learn to relay a set of rules – but you can’t teach it to have a personality or character. Work on soft skills and the world is your oyster.

What advice would you offer to someone about to go through the re-deployment process?

Probably two bits of advice regarding redeployment. One, moving to a new role or trying something completely new, really stress test the role that you're doing now, understanding the skills required and whether it has the capacity to give you what you need and stretch yourself. By asking ask yourself those questions, it can really help you identify what other opportunities could be suitable for you.

I think the second piece of advice, is to keep a really open mind and believe in yourself. It can be quite lonely when you're having to start fresh with new colleagues and almost prove yourself. So just make sure that you don't lose your self-belief, you don't lose your confidence. All that stuff that you did really well in your other job, and how well you were thought of, make sure it transfers over with you and you don't get set back to zero again.

Since stepping into your new role, what new opportunities have you discovered or pursued?

The sheer breadth of my role helps me enable where I want to play in it – what bits energise me (and knowing what they are) – what development I want to work on. The beauty of my role is I don’t necessarily need to do something else or go elsewhere to learn something new or get stimulation – it is right in front of me given the scope I have. In a morning I could be 121 with CEO accounting for the performance of the Retail Network; in the afternoon I could be sitting on a welcome desk in a branch talking to customers and/or colleagues

Is there anything else you’d like to tell us about?

I think going through redeployment, it can be quite a daunting process, particularly if you're stepping out of your comfort zone. I know when I went to work in share plans, I felt as if I was working for a totally different organisation. The skill set, the technical expertise, just the whole dynamic was totally different to the branch network. But I got one piece of really good advice, and that was always give a new job, a new experience, six months. Within that six months is a lot of volatility in terms of how you feel, and I think you've got to balance that out if you just think of a graph, and just balance that out into a line. And once you get to that five, six month period, you'll know, is, are you okay here, or do you need to make a gear change and do something else? For me, it did work. Everything balanced out, and I stuck with the job and I ended up loving it and it's made me successful for the role I do now within the branch. So always give something at least six months.

If you need support, you can access the new mentoring offering or contact the Team.