What it means to be supported at Specsavers

“Anywhere I go, I want to make a difference.”

Joining Specsavers was an opportunity I never would have thought about. It started off as an accident after an initial interview, but I knew I had to take the opportunity. I flourished and now 20 years later, I’m still part of the Specsavers team. Throughout my journey, I’ve loved learning and developing myself and my team so we can provide the best care to customers.

Finding a passion for learning and development

During my career, I always asked myself “what else can I do?” So, I started going to local schools, talking about my profession and getting people to come and do work experience in my store. I had multiple students going from not knowing what they want to do, to now being optometrists. They transformed with my support and coaching, which gave me so much satisfaction. Now I coach 16- to 18-year-olds into a building a career that they enjoy, whether as an optician or something else.

Inspiring the next generation

After building my coaching capabilities up, I became a STEM Ambassador with Specsavers too, meaning I’d head to careers or school fairs. Here we have our own little stall set up where we can talk to students about elements of our job they didn’t even know existed across audiology and optics. If they’re interested, we take their details and send them more information about potential apprenticeship programmes and future careers we’ve got. Something that gives me so much joy is when I’ve had children get so inspired by the talks I give that they want to have my autograph. It’s lovely to be able to change people’s life from a young age and put a seed in their mind to tell them they can do it.

Being supported through hard times

While I make a difference to people’s lives, whether customers, my shop floor staff or Optometrist team, I need to be able to look after myself too. In 2010, I found out I had glaucoma. At the time, we never really tested our eyes as opticians but my colleague eventually tested me and said I’d lost 30% of my vision. I then had four operations and am now 50% blind. When I found out it felt like my life had just ended because there were so many things I couldn’t do. But I knew I needed to bounce back, I wanted to do more and continue to make a difference. Specsavers gave me the strength to carry on, they supported me with leaving early if I needed to and having flexibility at work. I don’t think I’d be doing what I do today without their support. Wherever I go, I talk about Specsavers.

The importance of leading with care

Whether your physical health or mental health, and whether you’re a customer or colleague, Specsavers would never allow you to burn out. They will make you feel good and like you want to do more, then when you do more you’ll feel good. When I ask the people in my store what they enjoy most about being here, they will say the culture. This is why it’s important to me that mental health is looked after. It’s why I let people have time to look after their families, so they’ll give me the time with their work. I think everybody should be where they’re happy. I give great opportunities and keep colleagues motivated and inspired with their work, so they don’t want to look elsewhere because they’re getting everything they need. And I’m really proud of my team.