This month I started working at Farrat as a Marketing Assistant. My role is to act as the primary marketing resource during a period of maternity leave, working with the Commercial Team to deliver the annual marketing plan. Prior to my employment I went through a rigorous recruitment process and was thoroughly overjoyed to be accepted as a new member of the Farrat team. In this blog, I want to share my first week’s experience to give you an insight into the people that make Farrat the remarkable company it is.
Day 1
My first day at Farrat started with a friendly Induction kicked-off by HR Manager Sophie, who introduced me to the Farrat team and ran through my Induction Schedule for the week. I was feeling slightly nervous (as one would feel on their first day) so this helped to settle the butterflies. I was provided with an Induction Pack, which contained an eclectic mix of useful and important documents and was setup at my own workstation with everything I would need. In my inbox, there was an invite to join a welcome lunch with the Marketing Executive, Charlene and Technical Director, Ryan, who kindly wanted to take me out for lunch and get to know me better.
The majority of my first day was spent shadowing colleagues from the Sales & Operations section of the firm, which gave me some great insight into the B2B enquiry process. Faye, the Customer Service Manager, was obliging when offering advice and tips on various aspects of the customer relations part of the company and everyone involved in the Operations part of the office came across as hardworking, dedicated and professional as well as being easy to talk to, which made the first day jitters a lot easier to deal with.
Day 2 & 3
The next day was spent observing various meetings throughout the day. From video-calls with the Swiss arm of Farrat, to meetings involving new Pricing tools, to Commercial Committee meetings involving the CEO, Oliver Farrell – the day was long but rewarding. During these meetings I got to see how the communications between various decision makers took place and how these decisions affected the various projects going forward. Meetings were differed depending on the subject being discussed, but they all involved a fantastic mixture of professionalism, tact, honesty and openness which was refreshing to see. The third day involved more shadowing and meetings, however this time the details of each Commercial division were expanded upon. There were meetings held with the Commercial and Project Delivery Managers, presenting the various products and services they were responsible for, establishing a great foundation of knowledge for each section of the firm.
Day 4 & 5
Thursday morning was spent with the Project Engineering Manager discussing the current systems in place and how in the future there would be alterations, improvements and even replacements to the various internal and external systems. This would be with the intention to make the processes smother, easier to use and simpler to do what needs to be done in order to meet the needs the customer and the goals of the company.
Moving on, a meeting was held with the current Marketing Executive, Charlene, and the CEO, Oliver, discussing the marketing efforts of the past year and how to improve going forward. This included metrics for success in 2020 (Marketing Communications-wise), what tools would be used to achieve these objectives, and what would be the main areas to focus on to grow and expand Farrat as a company. This meeting was extremely helpful for my role in the company and like other meetings before, there was an environment of honesty, professionalism and solidarity.
A brief period was also spent with the Research and Development team. Here products are tested to see what the parameters are, how the material will react to certain conditions and to figure out how we could improve our current set of products. The latter half of the day was mostly spent with the Application Manager who was helpful with attaining information for enquiries as well as calculations and tracking of key information.
A bit of time was also spent with the production team members. This is where the magic happens, so to speak. Here, products are produced from raw materials, checked, packaged and shipped to the customer’s required location for final use. My colleagues in this area were very accommodating in explaining how the production process works, from accepting the order to preparation for logistic purposes.
Week 1 in Review
The first week at any corporation can be a daunting experience with all the new terminologies, systems and new faces (with names) to navigate through.
Here at Farrat, the experience has been made far easier with colleagues always willing to lend a helpful hand, an insightful tip and share their experience and expert knowledge. And with a focus on quality of product, as well as service, you can see how Farrat has grown over last few years to be the best inVibration Control, Acoustic and Shock Isolation, Structural Thermal Break Connections and Support & Levelling of Industrial Machinery.
As the saying goes, ‘You’re only as good as the people you work with’, and the people at Farrat are pretty exceptional.
