Our new Operations, Excellence Specialist, Laura King has gained an impressive array of experience working across a variety of Seetec’s client-facing and service support roles. This depth of knowledge ensures she’s best placed to help finely tune our core service delivery for clients and colleagues alike.

Laura studied social care in D.I.T., as she says herself, she always envisioned working in a caring profession where she could help people.

Her first job was with Peter McVerry Trust, Ireland’s largest provider of Housing First services which aims to provide a person sleeping rough, or someone who has been long-term homeless, with their own secure accommodation as well as access to intensive and specialised support services.

For two years she worked in hostels with people experiencing homelessness in Dublin city centre and surrounding suburbs.

“You got to know so many people from all different walks of life, different age groups. Seeing firsthand the many barriers people face, addiction, mental health, literacy and lack of access to education. Overall, I loved it, especially when I saw people move into housing or treatment. But of course, there are tough sides to working with people so closely when their stories aren’t going as well.”

A friend already working as an Employment Advisor (EA) with Seetec, told her she’d be perfect for an Advisor role and would fit in well at the organisation.

“I wanted my next role to offer work-life balance and the Advisor role seemed to fit with what I’d studied, and the skill set I developed working in the community. I started in 2019 in Amiens Street as an Employment Advisor. It was a bit of a transition to work in a more structured way with Key Performance Indicators. But the team was so welcoming and eager to help me when I started.”

Laura worked as an EA for two years before applying for an Employment Advisor Support and Compliance role during COVID-19.

“In this role, I was still meeting with clients, but also working with our EAs and the business manager to help improve service delivery. After I’d trained for this role, I could assess compliance and quality metrics in our centre, seeing what was working well and what we could do better in. You then feed this back into the business highlighting training needs and creating courses to help our EAs offer better service.”

After another two years, Laura moved on to an Employer Service Consultant role. This role combines work with clients who are most ready to enter the labour market along with developing relationships with organisations and businesses in the community who were looking to grow their teams.

“This role focused more deeply on what opportunities are available for people in our communities and what we could provide our clients in terms of interview prep and key training. There’s a lot more outreach, working with businesses in the community, job brokering and showing what Seetec can do for local employers. Also maintaining open communication to ensure our clients are doing well in their new roles.”

Combining all this experience brought Laura to her latest role here at Seetec, Operations Excellence Specialist.

“It surprised me in my time at Seetec how much I loved working to improve our systems and making our service delivery better. I loved working with clients but now I get to look at the broader picture, look at the business as a whole and bring my ideas to the delivery board. I feel really lucky that I’m visiting all our centres, meeting all our colleagues and doing training with them. I’m learning all the time from them, how we can make things better and make both the service and business stronger.”

We wish Laura all the best in her new role and we’re confident that her insight and ideas will ensure our service continues to improve and grow.