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Wow! What a busy couple of weeks!!! Just finished wrapping up the “Get Up For England” campaign and it has been . . . emotional!

This past week it’s been less of the overly exciting stuff and more head down and work. I thought the time would never come but to compensate for being so busy a while back I overloaded on cool things - twice out of the three times I have been to The O2 when we have had a professional sports star guest going to a gig. Can’t say who I took to the last gig I went to (which was to see Katy Perry - for whom I have now taken a massive liking too) but it is great fun!

Anyway, it’s quite hard not to talk too much about the social side, so I hereby present a short splurge on my the day to day stuff recently:

With wrapping up our RWC campaign and Christmas drawing closer everyone is starting to focus on finance. I have spent a lot of time trying to fully get to grips with the financial systems and budgeting. I actually feel a lot more confident with it all, especially now I know the people at O2 who can help out whenever I have a problem.

Other than rugby budgeting I have become heavily involved in looking at the year ahead and what activity we can do or amend at Arsenal in the winter months, so looking forward to some exciting stuff with that.

So, there it is, my last couple of weeks in a nutshell, speak to you soon, Jonny

My previous blog was a bit of an introduction, but didn’t cover what I actually do and what it’s like to work at o2. As I am first and foremost, an athlete, the most important thing to me is that as part of the Athlete Career Development Scheme, o2 fully recognise that my sport comes first and are completely supportive to ensure that my work fits around my training and competitions giving me about three working days a week.
On applying for the scheme, I showed an interest in Human Resources. I had studied Sociology at University and throughout my degree, became particularly interested in people in the workplace. In the true o2 accommodating way, they placed me within the Policy Team in HR right away, and thus began my year long placement.
O2 are currently refreshing their policies, and part of my role in the team is to refresh some of the family policies by gathering internal and external research and reviewing it with new government legislation.  I have been note-taker for disciplinary hearings, archiving the o2 policies for employment tribunals and attended various training courses for employees using policies. This has all increased my knowledge of policies, but also of the company and its culture overall.
Another aspect of my job is the ‘athlete’ role and my interest in social media (@HannahELawrence, hannahlawrencegbr.blogspot.com), which stems from searching for sponsorship earlier in my career.  I’ve become involved in some of o2’s developments within new social medias, leading so far to: my blog for the o2 careers website; presenting the ‘Digital Journalist of the Year’ and ‘Sports Journalist of the Year’ Awards at the 02 Media Awards for Yorkshire and the Humber; organising a day of fencing with o2 staff at the Bury Call Centre and Slough Office; and athlete video blogs for the o2 intranet.
And so this effective balance of my career development and being an athlete at o2 makes up the ‘o2 Athlete Career Development Scheme’ which is also currently being used by the English Institute of Sport  to help set up similar schemes within other businesses to give other athletes a similarly great opportunity.

Hannah

I started fencing at a small local club in Derbyshire when a friend asked if I would go with them. At the time I was competing in athletics and netball for my county and when I tried fencing, my first impressions were that it was a bit of an odd activity which, in my view, was hard pushed to call itself a “sport”.  As I continued to go (partly for the social side and partly because I am competitive and there were people there I hadn’t yet beaten) I gradually realised that it is the most endearing sport of them all. The more you discover of fencing, the more fascinating it becomes. In running, and even netball, there is a limit to the creativity involved. Your aim is to be faster, more accurate, more powerful, but the creativity is restricted. In fencing, your power, strength and speed are important, but they can only get you so far. If someone can predict what you’re going to do, it doesn’t matter how fast your attack is, you’re doomed. For this reason the progression in fencing is infinite-a challenging feat for someone who likes to reach goals, but luckily I also like a challenge…

So this is my sport, and this is why I chose to pursue it as a full time occupation. To cut a long story short, I first went to the club at around 14 and although was in the U17 and U20’s British team, I didn’t fully commit to it until I went to University. Whereas for many young athletes the less-mandatory structure of university education causes them to become less involved in their sport and distracted by other things, for me it provided the opportunity to put more time into my fencing and resulted in my becoming Senior National Champion at the end of my first year. This led to sponsorship and a place in the senior team, and at the end of my degree I was required to move down to London to train with the rest of the British squad and whilst I was in London I applied for the o2 scheme to gain some extra work experience along with training full time towards London 2012.
So far my fencing had gone from strength to strength and the transition from a 14 year old girl going to a small club of beginners to full-time athlete had been smoother than I thought possible. Unfortunately, it wasn’t to last as I didn’t enjoy living in London and although I was training hard, I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to compete, which resulted in a poor season in the international individual events.
Although the team event was looking more positive for us with regards to going to the Olympics, this wasn’t to go smoothly either. Soon after gaining our highest ever world ranking following reaching the quarter finals in Rio, British Fencing went through some changes resulting in our national coach ending his time with us and a new Performance Manager  being appointed. Due to the uncertainty of the team and my feelings towards living in London, I moved back up to Manchester to find steadier and more familiar ground.
This would have a been pretty tough  if it hadn’t been for another aspect of my life which was becoming increasingly more positive and exciting, and here I am referring, of course, to my work placement with o2. This new opportunity was providing me with the perfect antidote towards feelings that I’d wasted my time and efforts training so hard for the past 4 years. I had been given the chance to learn and work for a stimulating business who wanted me, as an athlete, to become involved in their journey through HR. With o2’s flexibility, I was able to very easily transfer from Slough to Bury and over the past few months, the stability I‘ve gained from working with the Policy Team has allowed me to build up a training regime here, in Manchester as part of my journey to 2012.

Hannah