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Faye is on the Financial Services Programme, on placement at LexisNexis Risk Solutions. She gives us an insight into how things have changed during lockdown
The UK wide lockdown has changed our all our daily lives, especially the way we work.
I’m a finance graduate at LexisNexis Risk Solutions and have been working from home for 12 weeks now. It has been a big adjustment, not only have I been adapting to a new way of working, my manager also left on maternity during this time, so I am now co-running the finance department with a new recruit. My daily workload has increased significantly however, I have really enjoyed this challenge and have found that the lockdown period has been much easier to bear with a big workload to keep me busy.
A big thing that I’ve enjoyed about working from home is the flexibility to exercise when I please.
Exercise is an important factor in keeping people motivated and positive and for me, it breaks up a day of sitting at the desk.
My morning normally starts with a quick workout or run to start the day feeling energised. Running has become a new thing for me since the lockdown as I wanted a challenge to focus on.
I’ve been working on both long and short distance running but my main goal was to run 5k in under 25 minutes. After running twice a week every week, I reached this goal in week 6!
This week has been month end which is the busiest week in finance and involves all of the monthly accounts analysis.
Some of the month end tasks included:
- Liaising with the London accounting team to review and improve our Content and marketing accruals.
- Reviewing monthly expenses and investigating any key variances. After this we review expenses with the accounting team and report this to the wider business in the US.
- Evaluating and investigating the revenue position and key customer variances. Reaching out to relevant teams to interrogate changes in revenue. This month revenue was submitted incorrectly and therefore we had to contact the US to approve a revenue adjustment.
- Attending a 90 Day Forecast meeting to get information from the sales team on upcoming sales.
I’ve really enjoyed the increased responsibility I’ve gained since my manager has been on maternity leave. I work with all parts of the business and feel like a valued member of the team. This has also increased my drive to eventually push for full time employment with LexisNexis Risk solutions and has pushed me to start my ACCA’s.
After work, I try to make sure I go for a walk to wind down and relax. I’m lucky to be living near Cardiff Bay so I can easily walk over the barrage. I also try to take my boyfriend’s dog for a walk as an excuse to get some fresh air. I think if we hadn’t have been so lucky with the weather this would have been a different story.
Overall, I have not been as impacted by lockdown as I expected. I think setting myself new challenges has meant I have been able to keep myself busy and active. I’ve been trying to cook new recipes on the weekend so that the weekends feel like a treat and have even attempted (like everybody else during lockdown) to bake. However, I’m definitely looking forward to getting back in the office to be able to speak to people face to face again. I’ve been mostly avoiding video calls because I’ve been working in my joggers!
