A Day in the Life of…An Administrator

Becky shares her behind-the-scenes take on working in our central administration team.

When you think of BSWA do you think of the workers that support our women on the frontline day in and day out. Have you ever wondered what it’s like behind the scenes in the infrastructure side of the business?

I’m currently working in the admin team and every day is completely different! We are essentially the face of the organisation, taking every call that comes in, every delivery and speaking to every woman that comes to the office. One day there could be no women coming to the office and the next day there could be 5. As well as in person, we also take a lot of calls daily from women looking to access support and advice. We validate their experiences and reassure them that we believe them and will be able to support them. It’s important that we take the time to listen to them and understand what service they require in order to give them the correct information. These women have been extremely brave in calling us in the first place, so we need to make sure their first impression of the organisation is a positive, encouraging experience.

Our job role is completely varied, depending on the day and the scenario. We spend a lot of time monitoring the maintenance of all of our sites across Birmingham and Solihull. Any repairs, site maintenance, routine checks are organised and arranged by us, along with our maintenance team. We receive agency enquiries on a daily basis, both by phone and email and respond to each accordingly. Recruitment is quite a large part of my role, putting together the recruitment packs and publishing our vacancies online, as well as monitoring the applications that come through to us.

We promote our charity shop constantly and we always direct generous members of the public who call or email in regard to donations to the charity shop, in the first instance for clothing and smaller items. Every penny made by the charity shop goes towards improving our services, so it is just as important to get the shop as stocked up as possible, as it is to have our clothes bank stocked.

When I first started at BSWA my intention was to gain all the knowledge that I could and then transfer over from the infrastructure side of the organisation to the frontline side of it. I thought I would gain all the knowledge I need and take all the training sessions I could in order to make this happen. However I realised that Infrastructure is where I’m meant to be!

I’m a logical thinker and love problem solving scenarios with clear cut answers. Processes, contracts, data and fundraising make sense to me, because there’s a formula to how things work, and that matches up with how I think and learn. I realised this side for the organisation is just as important and to help support women the best way I can with my skillset would be to continue down the Infrastructure route.

Working in Admin is a great way to learn how the organisation operates and allows to understand each team in more depth. To understand the intricate differences between the services that each team provides and the differences in how they work. Every day is a testament to our skill and adaptability because we never know what is going to come our way. It’s about being able to prioritise and re-prioritise based on what happens during the day. There truly is never a dull moment!