Baker Stuart, is a professional workplace consultancy. One of their current clients is Mitie, with whom they are in partnership, to support BSkyB’s property department in the development of workplace strategies, for their countrywide property portfolio.My particular role in that project involves surveying existing buildings, updating their master floor plans, creating concept layouts for their new or expanding businesses and maintaining accurate records following the associated moves of those businesses, within that portfolio.

I've been working with a construction team in their LondonBridge offices. They are working on major refurbishment projects of No 1London Bridge and the Cottons Centre and my role has been one of support to thatteam and in particular gaining experience in Building Information Management process.

I completed a short term contract working with the Business Services team carrying out the re- planning of several areas of their new City of London office, to improve circulation and the lack of natural light in some centrally located offices. I was also involved in the developing concept plans for a new floor of their Washington (USA) office. This included liaising directly with members of their Washington office to establish the brief and to agree the eventual layout, which comprised of; 23 partner offices and their secretaries; two 22 person, four 16 person and six eight person meeting rooms, plus associated vending locations and soft seating areas.

I worked with the BSkyB property team (specialising corporate workplace planning and move management) on a short term contract, using the latest Autocad (2012) software. Due to expansion pressures and ever changing business demands, the sites are in a constant state of flux, with a churn rate of over 25%. The work therefore involved liaising with business representatives to re-plan and move parts of, or all of those businesses (e.g. Sky Sports, Sky News etc.) to more suitable office accommodation within those sites, in order to a meet those needs.

I spent a 4 week retraining period gaining work experience with two of the UK’s leading workplace design consultants (e.g. William Dunne and Chris Ager). During this time I became familiar with the basic tasks of charting organisational structure, their tasks and necessary equipment; analysing the operational process and gaining an understanding of the human and cultural qualities of the organisation.

My role was to design and sell new kitchens, bedrooms and bathroom furnishings to both in store and out of store customers. using a CAD program to plan and provide detailed costing for and importantly, sell the desired scheme to the customer. In this role it was crucial to discuss, fully understand and eventually produce a detailed design that the customer was completely happy with, both from a design and as well as a cost perspective. I worked both in the store, as well as in the customer’s own home, where I had to take full on-site measurements and then work with them to produce an attractive and a cost effective scheme. I resigned from this position because I wanted to move away from a direct sales environment and move into interior design and space planning generally. In the interim I have expanded my knowledge of which was not possible within this organisation.

The role started out as a sales trainee, however by the time I decided to leave, I was deputising for the Store Manager and taking on customer care, banking, stock, audit and staff training responsibilities, as well as focusing on my own sales targets.