Team Manager Review

I really enjoyed my placement. It truly gave me an insight in to what happens in a supply chain. Of course there's times where I felt I didn't want to do it, but in the whole I enjoyed my day to day routine. I was given plenty of responsibility from running my own shifts on weekends to having my own projects.

For the most part I felt valued by other managers as they trusted me to do my job and do it well. Fellow managers are the people you spend the most time taking too and getting to know best, everyone at Crewe was very nice. As I was coming in as a placement student there were a couple of occasions were the people you were managing might not have taken me seriously or listened to me as I was new to the business. This is something that you just have to work through and be aware of.

Support from my Manager was good. We were given daily briefs as a Team Managers on performance and business news. I had a catch up every 5 weeks with my Ops manager and then would also have a catch with the site GM once every few weeks to see if there was anything I wanted to do or try etc... However due to covid this support did die off as often they were working from home. On my placement I was given a Mentor and a Buddy. Unfortunately my Mentor left the business so I didn't get to visit him before he left. Mentors are senior managers from other sites which you are expected to keep in contact with and go and see. However my Buddy was a second yer Grad and I was able to ask him for advice if I needed any.

Day to day I was fairly busy. Some days could be slow and not much much happening. However there is other times when you can be rushed off your feet. The good thing about the job is that it always changes as the depot runs 24/7. Times like Christmas and Mother's Day are very busy!

I was given a fair bit of responsibly while on placement. I was trusted to be the only manager on site and to run my weekend shift while reporting back to my manager on performance. There were times however when I felt very much like the "new person" and my manager would ask another manager to do something as they felt I wasn't able to do it alone. Of course there are some things I wasn't able to do as a placement student. But for the most part, anything I was able to do, I did.

I developed a lot of skills on this placement, whether that be learning how to motivate people, talk to people from different walks of life or even just gaining a greater understanding of how a supply chain worked. Other training included a three day course when you first join to get to know other placement students and grads, IOSH training, as well as other days away training.

It was good. The mood between the managers is always nice and laugh. Though most people I came across were very nice, I did notice the warehouse is a very male dominated atmosphere at times so its important to have a thick skin.

Overall the placement is set up very well. The support you get from all parts of the business is incredible, from the shop floor or the way up to members of the board.

The company invests a lot of time in to, through training courses or asking senior managers to mentor you and take time out their day to help you develop as a person.

Very appealing. The business is full of graduates in senior management positions and there seems to be a very clear path to allow you to succeed within the business.

I was lucky as there were other graduates on site, so we went out for dinner with each other in the evenings. However most sites that I know of only had one placement student or graduate at a time so I was lucky. Don't expect to be going out with other placement students as sadly this won't happen. Also during my time in transport we went on a couple of nights out and also had a good Christmas party. Though I lived in Crewe I went home most of my rest days so didn't really feel the need to invest time in activities outside of work. From what I can tell, there's not much.

Rent was cheap in Crewe and surrounding areas were not to bad either. Very affordable.

Crewe isn't famous for its night life for a reason. There isn't much going on in the area.

I was lucky as there were other graduates on site, so we went out for dinner with each other in the evenings. Also during my time in transport we went on a couple of nights out and also had a good Christmas party. Though I lived in Crewe I went home most of my rest days so didn't really feel the need to invest time in activities outside of work. From what I can tell, there's not much.