My first job was with the Nationwide Building Society on its graduate scheme. After a couple of years, I got my first management role. This was just after Nationwide merged with the Anglia Building Society in the late 1980s, and I went to run one of the Anglia branches.

It was like walking into an alien environment because all the systems were different from those at the Nationwide and I had to learn all over again.

It was a small branch and I noticed individuals were left to do the things they were good at. Most of them, however, wanted to expand their knowledge.

So I drew up a simple development and rotation plan and the staff loved it. We had an initial dip in productivity for the first month as people got used to swapping roles but after that it paid dividends and the team began to take real pride in their jobs. I stayed there for just over a year before moving into a retail-training role and then running a Nationwide training centre. Then I moved to head office as management-training manager.

I have been with Zurich for nine years now in a talent management role, but the experience in that branch was what attracted me to training and development and I have been doing it for nearly 20 years.