Rhian

My name is Rhian Edwards and I am working with the Commercial team to do a review of relationship management. It’s given me the opportunity to go out in the field and spend time with the sales staff, spend time with the customers and spend time in the contact centres with the service staff and understand how the whole process with regards to relationship management hangs together.

Prior to joining the Royal Mail, I worked for Barclays Retail Bank for nine years, very much working in Sales and Commercial Operations. After that I went to work as a Management Consultant in Europe and America and was lucky enough as well to do two years with DHL which is what brought me into mail logistics.

For me this is the pulse of our operation. This is where everything comes in to be sent around the rest of our network.

I can remember on my first week I arranged to go out to my local delivery office, and spent my first day delivering the post with my postie to my neighbours and then moved out and went on collections and deliveries, so to understand this is to understand the DNA of our organisation.

I think in joining the STEP you are very much left to get on with dealing with your assignment yourself. If we’ve come into this organisation to be senior leaders, we’ve got to behave like senior leaders.

The beauty of this programme is that we really have got 18 months to start understanding and learning all of the composite parts and where everything fits in the jigsaw, so hopefully at the end of 18 months, not only will they have our experience, we’ll understand the business and we’ll be able to talk with credibility.

Until I joined the Royal Mail I didn’t realise how much it had to offer. And I think it is because people don’t think of it as being a commercial organisation. Behind it there is a huge engine of an organisation which needs transforming, so if you’ve got the experience, you’ve got a great opportunity to make a career for yourself.

I was very proud from day one. It’s infectious. Every single person that I have met that works here is very proud to say that they work for the Royal Mail. I was myself after day one and that pride and passion carries every single day of the week since I have been here and I can’t explain how it’s been done so easily, but it’s been done.