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My Career Story

Claire

Environmental Services Supervisor

I joined SWS during the pandemic to support a Covid testing site. I had been furloughed from my job after 18 years working in hospitality, like a lot of people in that industry. By Christmas 2020 my new year’s resolution was to find a new role. 

I learnt that Serco was recruiting agency workers for their regional testing centre in Telford. I applied and was successfully appointed as a Mobile Testing Unit (MTU) supervisor. My role was to head up a team and be deployed to various locations dictated by the UK Health Security agency. We would set up the site, complete a brief and start PCR testing the local community. At the end of the day, we would simply pack up and head back to base.

After about 6 months, I saw a position advertised for a deputy site manager for Serco. I applied and transitioned into that role soon after. I was part of a management team supporting 80 operatives, 6 supervisors and 10 MTU teams across Shropshire. Our last day of testing was 30th March 2022. From there I went to work for the decommissioning team, which was a huge undertaking, removing all trace of the testing programme from the West Midlands and Shropshire area.

At the same time, I was going through the redundancy process and my heart was no longer in the hospitality sector. I had enjoyed my time with Serco and started looking for a role that would support my skillset.

I saw an internal advert for an Environmental Services supervisor based in Oldbury. It seemed to suit my skillset so thought I’d give it a go. I knew the industry itself was out of my comfort zone however I was ready for a new challenge and a new direction. I was successful and began the role in July 2022.

My team look after all the street cleaning, road sweeping, litter picking and fly tipping in the borough, plus all the town centres, parks, open spaces, and even the paths in the cemeteries. I never thought that this is what I would be doing. But when our Covid testing roles were becoming redundant, I was really encouraged to stay and look at the internal progression opportunities available. 

Serco showed me I could progress, and calls were set up with all the different business units within Serco UK; Justice and Immigration, Defence, Space and Environmental Services, to name a few, to give us an idea of all the different areas we could go into and how Serco works. 

I’ve joined a brilliant team; we have a great working relationship, and we have a great team spirit. I’m happy, settled, and every day is different.