A journey into finance at Travis Perkins: Lucy’s story

The Travis Perkins finance team is down-to-earth, hard working and always welcoming to new colleagues. Lucy Chambers spoke to us about her experience of starting work in this busy department at Travis Perkins:

Why did you join Travis Perkins?

It’s a company I’ve always been aware of, in fact my grandparents worked for the Group years ago! The graduate scheme was perfect for me and ticks lots of boxes to develop my limited experience in a finance role; exposure to lots of different departments within finance, a range of experience to gain, whilst working within a FTSE250 company highly focused on their values and colleagues.

What are your colleagues like?

During my first couple of weeks at Travis Perkins, during the pandemic, I had a lot of (virtual) meetings with people across all the Group Finance teams, and instantly felt so at ease. Everyone was so friendly and supportive, and I knew that if I had any problems there were a lot of people I could turn to for help.

What skills have you gained?

Despite the fact I’ve only been working with the Group for a few weeks, I still feel like I have gained a lot of skills. For example, through meeting everyone over video chat – which was an unusual experience – I gained a lot of confidence with being able to talk to new people. I was also able to put a lot of theory that I learnt at university into real life accounting situations, which is really valuable. I still feel like I have so much more to learn, which is what I’m here for!

What’s been your proudest moment at Travis Perkins?

My first placement was with the Finance Business Partners, who were starting to prepare the 2021 budget, and throughout this I observed quite a few budget review meetings. My proudest moment came when I held my very own budget meeting with the head of a department, only a few weeks into me starting!

What’s the hardest thing you’ve done to date?

Getting used to the size of the company! I’ve only worked in the head offices of small–medium sized firms, so coming into a huge Group like Travis Perkins with such a large number of different businesses, teams and colleagues took some getting used to.

What have you learnt about yourself?

I can adapt to new situations a lot quicker than I thought I could. Due to joining at such an unusual time, I had to be able to adapt to brand new situations - who would have thought I would already be training in the virtual world by 2020?

If someone was thinking about joining Travis Perkins, what would you say to them?

I’d say “do it!” I never thought I’d have a job where it got to Sunday and I was looking forward to Monday. From my very first day I’ve felt really supported, with an assigned placement manager, graduate manager, as well as an ACCA buddy - there were so many people to turn to no matter what kind of query I had. I feel like I’ve already gained a lot despite only starting a few weeks ago. I can’t wait to see where the rest of the scheme takes me.