Making a difference… Kelly Harley

Within Churchill Group, there are almost 16,000 people making a difference every day. From payroll clerks to cleaners, account managers to security officers each person plays a role in supporting our communities and making each one of our specialist businesses a great place to work.

Bruce Van Der Waag, Group Chief Financial Officer said: “I passionately believe that each one of our colleagues, no matter what their role, makes a difference to the success of Churchill. We all on a day-to-day basis have touchpoints with our customers, whether they are internal or external, and as the lifeblood of a service-oriented business like Churchill we influence its outcome.”

Lizzie Neave, Group Marketing and Communications Director said: “Helping people to understand how they make a difference is important to the culture of our business as it will help unlock more collaboration and help people connect better. I’m a huge believer in the need for people to feel part of something, and being clear about how their role contributes to success will create that sense of belonging.”

Throughout this blog series, we will be hearing from different people across our group of specialist businesses to discover more about what their role entails and the difference they make.

Kelly’s story…

Kelly Harley works as a supervisor as part of our Make Ready division and has been in her role for just over a year. From a young age, she has always had a passion for working in the medical profession and previously cleaned theatre operating rooms.

One of the aspects she enjoys most about her role is the variation day to day. Alongside her colleagues, she enhances patient safety by ensuring ambulance fleets are prepared, cleaned, re-stocked and that all equipment is working before every shift. Ultimately, Kelly and the rest of the Make Ready team help to create a safe environment for those onboard the vehicles.

Deep cleaning of the vehicles and checking stock levels make up only part of her role. Other aspects include testing vital equipment on board, checking for faults, and organising vehicle repairs. She explained how her role makes a difference to not only the patients in the ambulance but also the paramedics. Without her thorough checks and testing, the ambulances either wouldn’t make it out into the communities or wouldn’t have all the equipment on board that paramedics need to make life-saving decisions.

It was evident throughout our discussion that Kelly takes great pride in her work. Although her shift pattern is outside of ‘normal working hours’, which can make juggling family life difficult at times, she explained how the positive impact her role has on others makes it all worthwhile.

There was one example Kelly gave of an exceptional circumstance where she made a difference which really stuck with us. Having finished her shift on a Friday morning, she received a call that afternoon none of us would ever want to receive. Her husband had suffered a heart attack and was being taken to hospital in an ambulance. Thankfully he received the care he needed and recovered well, but Kelly later discovered the vehicle that took him was one she had made ready that morning. She firmly believes that without the work she carried out earlier that day and the amazing work of the paramedics this story could be very different. Having built a relationship with the paramedics, she was able to track down who was on board and thank them personally for everything they did to help her husband.

When we asked Kelly if there was a misconception about her role, she said that she thinks people believe she ‘just’ cleans ambulances when it is so much more than that. There is a process for everything, she described it as juggling balls. ‘You must keep all the balls moving and everything in the air.’

When making a vehicle ready, Kelly explained how you must plan for every incident because you never know what is going to happen. She explained how teamwork and collaboration are essential and that she relies on the support of her team of operatives to ensure everything gets done and the ambulances get on the road.

Hearing Kelly’s story and finding out more about her role demonstrates just one of the ways our amazing colleagues make a difference in their everyday roles. The work she and the Make Ready team do is vital to not only ensuring ambulances get on the road in time but also that the paramedics have what they need to help others and at times save lives.

Look out for the next blog in our series of ‘making a difference’ and find out more about our colleagues and their roles within the Churchill team.