The next instalment of our 'A Day in the Life of' series sees Gill Forrester walk us through a typical day as FMB's Director of HR & Compliance.

My day starts with a 35-mile drive to work. Today, I can enjoy the glorious sunshine on our drive down while putting the world to rights with my friend and colleague, Chris.

Arriving at the office I make a cup of tea to start the day off and catch up on any overnight emails.

At 9.30am, I meet with Rebecca, our Marketing Co-ordinator/Assistant to Directors and a local electrician to discuss some electrical maintenance work we need to obtain a quote for.

This is followed by my weekly update with Sarah Tulley, our Research and Compliance Manager to discuss any current compliance issues and any upcoming activities for the week ahead.

Late morning I meet with Val, our Fee Technician, to discuss the Management Information Report we created to estimate the amount of ongoing fees we receive as I’ve offered to help another firm who works on an accruals basis and needed a refresher on how the information is obtained. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get the spreadsheet to format and so we had to seek the help of our external IT consultant who called into the office after lunch and managed to find a solution. While he was in the office, we got together to discuss the cost of a new server and agreed that he would provide a revised estimate for this which he would email over in the next day or so.

After following up on a few more emails I’ve had through this morning, I made the necessary amendments to the Managament Information report and asked Val to test it to see if it works – thankfully it did!

Later in the afternoon, I met with Client Services Manager, Sarah Shepherd to discuss our upcoming Investors in People (IIP) assessment. We have been accredited with the IIP award since 1999 and since they brought in the new assessment framework in 2013, we have held the Silver award. This year’s assessment will review any changes we have made and ascertain whether we have managed to achieve Gold status. We are still working our way through the gap analysis which I hoped to have completed today, however, at 4pm, I decided to call it a day on that.

The last action on today’s agenda involves emailing fellow Director, Roger, asking him to have a look over the Data Breach Policy I had produced. After receiving an email back confirming everything looked okay, I set about preparing an email to send round the team to remind everyone of the importance of GDPR and data protection. We always like to ensure that staff receive regular training and updates, a little refresher here and there never hurt anybody!

Every day is different and I love moving the business forward and improving our systems and procedures so we can give the best possible service!