Jodie Richardson, Service Manager, Support to Succeed contract, GC Employment
Jodie studied Law initially at university, before going on to study Creative Writing. Following university, Jodie worked in bars and in retail roles, before becoming Assistant Manager and then Store Manager for Barnardo’s. Jodie found working for a charity extremely rewarding, but needed to move on for career progression and financial reasons and became Store Manager for Toolstation – setting up a brand new store in Bredbury.
Jodie found herself missing elements of working in the charity shop – working with and creating a team of volunteers, who were often people with disabilities, or people who were anxious to return to the workplace. Jodie missed the satisfaction and reward that came from working with and helping people in this way.
Jodie’s desire to want to work with people, and help people, led her to apply for the GC Restart Adviser role in Walkden – which she was successfully appointed to. Just under a year later, Jodie was promoted to the Lead role in Walkden, after missing out on a lead role in the Trafford team. Jodie’s manager worked with her to plan her development and help her to work towards becoming a Lead, and then towards a Service Manager role – placing a lot of trust in her by allowing her to support with HR and team situations to gain experience. As well as this, Jodie was put onto an Apprenticeship in Leadership and Management (Level 3), which she's about to finish.
Jodie then applied for a Service Manager role on the new GM IPS contract, but it was felt that the contract needed someone with more management experience, so Jodie was not successful in this application. Shortly after this though, Jodie was successful in her application for a Service Manager role on the new UKSPF Support to Succeed contract – 2.5 years after first joining GC as an Advisor.
Jodie said: "My manager, Mandy at Walkden, was extremely supportive of my development and placed a lot of trust in me to give me the experience I needed to develop and move into other roles.
"I was also recently diagnosed with autism and GC, and managers Mandy and Grace, have fully supported me in this area, enabling me to be diagnosed more quickly than I would ordinarily have been, and providing support following my diagnosis.
"I love working for GC, and working on contracts that really help people, and I plan to stay as long as they will have me!"