Katie Lewis - Senior Administrator at PSG SIPP

To Brie or not to Brie?

In each edition of the LOOP and in no particular order, we’d like to put a face to a name and introduce to you a member of the team from TPSG and PSG SIPP. Meet Katie.

How long have you worked at PSG SIPP?

1 year and 6 months

What does a typical day look like for you?

Checking my team’s work, mainly for my colleagues Beth and Rosie. Looking at processes and their improvements and valuations!

What are your hobbies, interests?

I am currently training for Bath Half for our Charity of the Year, Dorothy House, so my evenings consist of a mixture of runs and gym, which I love as I always feel so much better afterwards. I also love that I can mix them up between solo and social, sometimes you need some alone time when going for a run but I do love going to the gym with my partner and friends.

I try to do something for charity each year including in the past, a skydive, quizzes and other runs.

I love going out for dinner and drinks with friends and games nights, I am lucky to work with some fabulous people and I am equally lucky to spend time outside of work with them.

I really enjoy watching Bath Rugby and the F1 with my partner and I love everything to do with tattoos, travelling, food and music (mainly pop-punk/rock/grunge).

What do you enjoy about your role?

I enjoy supporting my team, having someone to train and guide is my favourite part of my job, but I also love using my creative side when thinking about processes and improvements.

What’s your favourite cheese?

This is a hard question as cheese is my favourite food and I truly believe any food/meal can be improved by its presence. It would have to be a toss up between Smoked Cheddar and Brie.

“I try to do something for charity each year including in the past, a skydive, quizzes and other runs.”

Talk us through a recent week in your life.

Monday

Rosie is Accounts newest member, she is now responsible for completing the Annual Valuations, these are sent to me for checking the night before, so I spend my morning checking these.

Several of us across the business are always looking at process improvements. We had a meeting and it was a great opportunity to speak to swap ideas and suggestions. I love learning from other people and expanding my knowledge.

We also have a start of the week Accounts Team chat to go over our priorities for the week and identify whether anyone needs any help with anything.

In the afternoon myself and the Accounts Team Leader, Alecia Giles, spent most of this time discussing the team and our processes. Looking at where we want to develop and what improvements could be made. It is always nice to have these meetings with one another to get different ideas flowing and developing and having other points of view.

After work I try and get a house job done to start the week off in the right way, this week it was a bit of household shopping.

Tuesday

Knowing the rest of my week is going to be busy, my focus of the day is Rosie’s checking and Quarterly Valuations. Focusing on the Quarterly Valuations also means that all client’s have up to date values for the start of the year.

I spent a large part of the afternoon replying to emails and continuing with the Quarterly Valuations.

This evenings job was to do the weekly food shop, the fun never stops!

Wednesday

Today I am in the office, it is always nice to have a couple of days in the office in the week now that we are able to. This gives me an opportunity to see other colleagues across the business that I wouldn’t normally see.

This morning I made a start on the Charity Newsletter that we send around the company. This allows everyone to see what we have been up to and what is coming up. More valuation checking completed.

Today the Accounts Team met up for lunch, we had a couple of birthdays in the team this week so it was nice to merge our lunches to celebrate them.

I spent the majority of this afternoon continuing with the Quarterly Valuations (there are a lot!).

This evening I mopped and hoovered and then spent the rest of the evening in front of the telly with my feet up.

Thursday

Today my manager, Pearl, and I took a trip to the Ampthill office. This was my first opportunity to meet the team and learn more about our processes. Our main focus for the day were the Annual Valuations and the Wake Ups. This was a great opportunity as it also gave us some fresh ideas of how to improve our processes. The drive there and back was long and wet but very much worth it and I look forward to my next visit again next month.

I also spent today tidying up our internal workspaces, this involved splitting it in two. I made a start on one today, making sure the spreadsheet had all of the correct tabs and data and that all the formula’s and formatting was correct.

After work we stopped off at IKEA for a bit of homeware shopping (my favourite) and some Swedish Meatballs.

Friday

Today I spent a large part of the morning finishing the tidy up of the internal spreadsheets, making sure the second was done and ready to use. Then my priority for the day turned to valuation checking.

At the end the day and week, the Accounts team get together once more for a roundup of the week and anything we might need to address for the following week.

Friday evening, finally the weekend, and I get to spend this with family.