Contractor Insurance CIO Review

Colleagues were great, and I have gained a lot of skills I didn't have before by being pushed out of my comfort zone in to a leadership role. That said, a leadership role is not something that I have interest for, and would have much preferred to do something technical, that makes use of my mathematical or computer programming skills.

I felt very valued by the colleagues that I work closely with. This is because of the responsibility of being in the role of coordinating a project, it is very important that I am operating well, else it will have impacts on the whole project, ie potentially the outcomes of the efforts of my colleagues. They were generally very friendly and helpful throughout my placement. Not quite family though. [I think thats a bad marker of what a ten would mean to answer this question.]

Yes I had weekly meetings with my manager, where we discussed how things were going. The offer of extra support was there, but he tried to allow me to also learn things on my own and explore through reflecting on experience during our meetings. Two graduate students were also fantastsic in helping me navigate through a new organisation.

Some days I was very busy, some days I was not so busy. After the first few weeks of the placement, I would say that I started to reach a level of reasonably optimum busy. The nature of my role at times was that I could make work for myself if I used initiative, is also worth saying.

I was given quite a lot of responsibility, being dropped in as coordinator of a very large and important fundraising effort started by a few Bristol LBG colleagues this summer. It's almost a project management and leadership role, so in that sense I think the responsibility given has been quite large.

I am not sure that the skills that I have learnt from here will help me in my further studies, which at the moment will hopefully be a PHD. I think that linking in my previous knowledge of effective communication and psychology from prior employment, with different styles of leadership and how they are appropriate at different times, is something thatI have found interesting and useful. I can definitely see how combining this with my gained skills of setting up a project, will be useful in future, should I find myself working on a project involving more than just myself.

the general atmosphere in the office is pleasant. colleagues are friendly and there is a high work ethic. The office atmosphere is very conjusive to working hard and also feeling able to stop for a few minutes and relax or chat. So I guess the fun does stop, in fact it doesnt happen that often, but I think the atmosphere suits a good working office... balanced.

Everything was very well organised by my manager and his team, especially considering he was on holiday for the first week of my arrival, so in terms of equipment, software, phones and access this was a smooth entry. The general setup I think was done well, in that dates were set, key contacts introduced and travel arrangements paid for and accommodation provided.

I think that the firm has quite heavily invested in me. I have been supervised by a very senior and experienced manager, with him taking a role in my development in the areas that I wanted to focus on. I have been able to access great online training resources, and to be able to test out the things I have learned and then reflect on these with my manager and get feedback for further development.

I do not ever see myself working for Lloyds Banking Group or any large financial institution in the future. Unfortunately they currently do not offer the kind of employment that I would like, that being academic research in applied mathematical fields such as mathematical biology or modelling climate change.

The social scene was pretty good. Lots of offers of lunch and drinks etc. I personally didn't go to all of them, but we definitely got a good group of people knowing each other to various extents.

Well my accomodation is paid for, and no transport costs. I have a kitchen so could have cooked regularly to keep costs down if I had wanted to. Socialising in Bristol can be expensive, it depends if you want to drink at over priced bars and eat out at over priced restaurants regularly. At the same time, reasonably priced good quality food and drink is available. Also Bristol has lots of great open public spaces, so these can be made use of cost free.

Bristol has some of the best nightlife in the country.

Outside of work I got invovled in some fundraising related to our charity challenge. There weren't a lot of opportunities handed to us by work. In bristol there are so many things always going on and many varying things to get involved in around the city.