Rachel Thompson joined Allied with the rest of her colleagues when we acquired the body shop they worked for in Wigan. We caught up with Rachel to talk about her role, how it was adjusting to life at Allied after the takeover, and how she likes to fill her spare time.
Talk us through a typical day in your role.
In the morning, I check all the emails, I check the bank; I have to reconcile the bank every two or three days. I deal with all the accounts, payments, the purchase ledger, check invoices, and anything else that Allied’s Financial Controller Kevin Lyons needs me to do, really.
Then I help wherever else I’m needed. I like to help and do whatever needs done.
Sometimes I’ve covered reception, I’ve helped in Parts, and I’ve even been known to bring the cars in before Allied took over.
There’s not a lot of us here in Wigan, so everyone just mucks in when something needs doing.
You’ve been at the Wigan Bodyshop since day one of Allied taking over, but how long have you worked in this office in total?
We became part of Allied about 18 months ago, and I’d been here for almost 7 years at that point, so I’m coming up on nine years.
And where were you before that?
Before that I worked in a garage for a while, running that for somebody else, and before that I worked for 23 years at an insurance company
Has the Allied takeover changed anything for you? What are the main differences?
The systems that Allied use are very different to what we used before, on the accounting side of things. We used to use Sage, but now we use Kerridge, and it’s very different; I still don’t think I’m completely used to it yet.
What is it that you enjoy most about your job that keeps you coming back every day?
I enjoy working with these people; we have a good team here in Wigan.
No two days are ever the same. I might have the same sort of tasks to do throughout the day, but there’s always other things that change it up. It’s never boring; I get variety. I’m not just doing the same thing day in, day out. There’s a variety of things that you can get involved in – I was even painting the other day!
Was the painting for the new workspace?
Yes, we’ve had a bit a re-jigging here. The downstairs office is becoming the reception area. Our boardroom is now office space for Accounts and Estimating.
Tracey Ashton, the Body Shop Manager, is now in an office beside us, so everyone’s a lot closer together now and things flow a bit better, and you feel more like part of the team.
When we were upstairs, we felt a bit separated. People didn’t want to come and ask questions because we were a bit out of the way, but people are quite happy to just open the door and pop in now.
And you were quite involved in getting it all ready, weren’t you?
Yes, I did a few bits and pieces. Tracy had the main hand in dealing with it but if she needed any assistance I was there to help. I helped with clearing everything out and tidying up, and a couple of weekends ago we were both in painting the original kitchen space and the bathroom. It was good fun.
What are some of the challenges that you face in your role?
Day-to-day, it’s not too bad. Initially it was getting used to the new systems and how Allied does things.
It’s very different to how we did things before the takeover, but you can understand why a company Allied’s size must have processes in place for everything.
For example, if we needed anything for the office it used to be we’d just check with the boss, he’d say, “yep, that’s fine,” and we’d fire up Amazon and get it ordered.
Now we follow a process and raise a request through Facilities so all the spend can be properly tracked.
It can be slightly frustrating at times because we had control of the bank before, and as long as we got it authorized, we just went ahead and ordered it, and it was delivered the next day. Whereas now it’s not as straightforward as that.
But if I have any issues I just pick up the phone to Kevin Lyons. Poor Kevin, he must see my number pop up and think, “oh, god it’s her again!”
Has the office culture changed much since becoming part of Allied?
There’s a wider pool of support for being part of a larger organisation. If you need help with anything at all, there’s always someone you can ask, always somebody somewhere that you can speak to.
We never had an HR department before, so that’s all new to us as well. We’re so lucky to have Tracy here, she’s so approachable. If you have any problems or questions, you can go and ask her, and if she doesn’t have an answer right away, she now has a bigger resource of places she can go to find out for you.
So that’s a great thing about being part of the wider Allied family. I must admit, when it first happened, I was bit uncertain, because suddenly all these new people from Scotland started showing up and we didn’t know why. Now, though, things have settled down, and I can say it was definitely a good move.
In the time since the Allied takeover, what’s your favourite work memory?
Oh, there’s loads. You’ve written about this before, but the day that a customer brought in flowers for Linda Davies for helping him, that was brilliant. It was great to see her get recognition for that, because that’s just who she is – she will go above and beyond to help a customer if she can.
Another one would be the Fun Day last year. I brought my grand-kids up to Glasgow for it and they absolutely loved it. I can’t make it this year, sadly, but hopefully we’ll have another one next year.
If there was one thing that you could tell people about working for Allied, what would you tell them?
It’s a lovely company to work for. It’s a big company but it’s still very much a family business.
The Facennas, Gerry and Peter, always make an effort to speak to us and say hi when they come down to Wigan. I think that’s so nice. They’re obviously busy and down here for business reasons and what have you, so the fact they take time to engage with staff, it says a lot about them.
And they do the profit share each year. We never had anything like before becoming part of Allied, so that was massive for us. It’s stuff like that that means you don’t feel like just a number at Allied. You feel like you’re part of something, and that’s really nice.
How do you like to unwind when you have a few days off?
I’ve got a good group of friends so I like to get out when I can. I don’t get a spare five minutes very often, but I like to cycle, and I like to read. I’m a fan of war-time type books about women in the factories, stuff like that, the odd murder mystery.
And where do you like to cycle? Any favourite spots?
I’ve got a gravel bike, so we do a lot of canal towpaths and things near us. I’ve got a friend who lives way up in Elgin, so when we go to visit her, we take the bikes. We’d like to take the bikes to France and do a little tour around.
I’m not into any cycling competitions or anything like that – wherever we cycle there tends to be a pub on the route!
What’s something not many of your colleagues would know about you?
Oh, gosh… Maybe that I’ve done the Manchester to Blackpool bike ride two or three times. That’s about 62 miles. Which for a proper cycling enthusiast is probably nothing, but for me that’s a decent ride!
And finally, if you hadn’t ended up in this career, what do you think you would’ve done?
When I was at school I wanted to work in a bank, but I never went that route when I left school.
Something I did want to do was run a tearoom. I worked in one when I was younger and I loved it, and I thought, “I could do that. I could run a B&B with a tearoom,” but then they popped up everywhere, they’re so competitive now. But if I hadn’t ended up here it would probably have been one of those.
