Katie Gibson joined Sorted on a mission to find the perfect work-life balance. Here she shares her reflections on life as a Sorted team member and how she’s making flexible, remote working fit alongside motherhood.
I first joined the Sorted team in May 2021 and have never looked back. I work alongside a great group of people and really enjoy taking on an incredible range of projects with such a variety of interesting clients.
Like everyone on the team, I work part-time, flexible hours from home. I consider myself really lucky to be able to work so flexibly and balance my career and my home life in this way. I have two young children and I tend to do a lot of my work whilst my youngest is at nursery and my daughter is at school.
On those days I must admit that it often feels like a race against time. Whilst we always seem to be awake at some unbearably early hour, there never seems to be quite long enough to get everyone dressed, fed and out of the door on time! But once they’re gone and the house is finally empty (and I’ve cleared up the carnage inevitably left in their wake) I grab a hot coffee and get comfy in front of my laptop. I’ve always loved writing and find it quite therapeutic so, while sometimes I’ll have the radio on, often I simply enjoy the sound of a quiet house and being able to focus completely on what I’m doing.
We work completely flexibly at Sorted, which means I’m not tied to working certain hours or days by anything other than my childcare. So, if I want to head to the gym, meet friends for lunch, or go to an event at school I can adjust my schedule to suit.
In my role as a communications manager, I’m responsible for project managing some of the larger pieces of work our clients ask us to support with, like annual reports. I also get involved with lots of other tasks, writing blog posts, case studies and articles, and supporting our own marketing team from time to time. This means my work is incredibly varied and certainly never dull.
Sticking with an annual report as an example, managing a project of this kind from start to finish involves quite a few different steps. Taking the brief provided by our client, I will write all the copy to go in the report. That can be writing completely original material or editing copy from pre-existing resources, like websites and other reports or booklets. I may also need to do some additional research, reading and interviews to make sure I understand enough about the subject matter to get the right message across. Once the copy is fully drafted, I’ll work with our proofreader to get a fresh pair of eyes on what I’ve written before it goes back to the client for review.
In parallel to this I will also be working with the client and our designer to develop a clear design brief and agree a look and feel for the report that ties in with the client’s branding.
I often have several pieces of work on the go that pass through different parts of the business, so it’s really important I keep on top of any updates from other team members through our project management system – which, thankfully, is super simple to use. As a fully remote team we use it to provide regular updates on the status of our work. This might be sharing feedback from clients, confirming that I’ve interviewed someone, highlighting a change in a deadline, or asking someone on the team for help.
After working for the same company for seven years before joining Sorted, I’m really enjoying the variety of work I get to do for our different clients. In just a year I’ve learnt so much about the health and care and public sectors and have worked with a children’s mental health charity, several NHS organisations, a private homecare provider, a city council and too many more to mention!
To find out more about our team and how our flexible support could help you, contact us today.