A Day in the Life of myGwork’s Harriet Lunney

This month we kick start our new weekly ‘A Day in the Life of…’ series with myGwork’s Harriet Lunney. She provides an insight into her role as Senior Customer Success Manager.

Hi Harriet, can you tell us a bit about your role and how you got here?

As a Senior Customer Success Manager, my role is to support our partners to achieve their diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) objectives and goals through their myGwork memberships. This includes ensuring our partners get the most out of their memberships through facilitating their benefits, acting as an advisor for any DE&I queries they have, and working with our partners to find solutions to their DE&I challenges through our platform. 

For the last 11 years I have worked in the early careers recruitment teams at large financial and professional services firms, for example Direct Line Group, EY and KPMG. Following this, I moved into employer branding and employee engagement, working at creative agencies Radancy and MSL Group. Throughout my career I have been a proactive LGBTQ+ ally, and whilst working at MSL Group I was a board member for the UK chapter of Publicis Groupe's LGBTQ+ employee network, Egalite. Therefore, when the opportunity arose to join myGwork, I felt it was the perfect opportunity to intertwine my passion for DE&I with my skills and experience.

What does a typical day look like for you?

Depending on the day, I will focus my time on one group of partners and their deliverables. So, for example, on Tuesday I’ll look at my Gold client deliverables, Wednesday Silver etc. Throughout the day I’ll look at a number of different factors – what training session or media campaign are we delivering, do we have membership renewal conversations to prepare for, and so on. I’ll also check in with the Customer Success team and other departments in the company to collaborate on partner deliverables and/or queries.

What part of your role do you enjoy the most?

I really enjoy the client facing aspects of my role: working with different people every day, finding out what they need and being about to help them achieve their goals. Working in the DE&I space is also really rewarding.

Which top three skills are vital for this role and why?

To be a successful Customer Success Manager, the top three skills you need are adaptability, time management and good communication. You are looking after a lot of accounts so you need to be able to deliver your tasks to a high standard and in the deadlines set. As well as this, being able to adapt to your different clients’ ways of working, communication style etc, is key to ensure you deliver a high quality, bespoke service to all. 

What’s the most challenging aspect of your role?

The most challenging part of my role is staying on top of between 40-50 client accounts. There’s a lot of spinning plates happening, so I work hard to ensure I am organized and make time for each client every week (even if it’s small admin tasks), and ensuring my client notes are all up to date.

How do you help others feel like they belong in your team or promote inclusion?

I try to be a proactive ally as much as I can. But one of the best things you can do is listen. I always try to offer a shoulder to cry on or a wall to rant at depending on the situation, and ensure that my team know I’m available to them to talk, whether it’s a work-related question or a personal issue.

Which podcast/Youtube series would you recommend to someone interested in pursuing a career in this area to help develop their skills or prepare them for a similar role?

There’s a YouTube channel called CSM Practice which is really good to get an overview of the role, how to be successful, tips and tricks etc. It’s really great at any level – whether you’re just starting out as CSM or you’ve been working in the role for a while and you want to refresh your skills.

Where do you see yourself in 10 years?

In terms of job roles I really don’t know! I moved from Glasgow to London 11 years ago thinking it’ll just be for a few years to have a new experience – and I’m still here. But what I do hope is that I am happy and successful in whatever I am doing, and I hope I continue to work in DE&I.

For similar opportunities, check out myGwork's job board featuring thousands of jobs with inclusive employers here.