A day in the life

A day in the life of...

Reena Chander

Development Project Manager RHP Employee since: 2009 Location, location, location: Teddington

09:30

11:00

14:30

16:00

17:00 Getting ready for the day

Each day kicks off with what we like to call a ‘Team Huddle’ with the rest of the development team. Due to RHP’s flexible working programme – ‘Your Work, Your Way’ – we’re often all dialing in from different locations, whether that be from home, the office, or even out on site. It’s not all business, though, and we get to have a bit of a social catch up too. This morning we were talking about the latest Strictly result!

Onto the on-site visits

I’m now going to visit a variety of our developments, which are project managed by me in Kingston and Surbiton, as part of my regular site visits. Here I meet with the relating site manager and the technical manager from RHP. We talk about a variety of things ranging from what’s going well, looking out for any potential health and safety risks, and check how many people are on site (this gives us a feel of how the scheme is progressing and is an indicator of any upcoming or current risks we may have that would hinder a timely handover!)

Reporting the risks

Now I’m back in the office. I make sure I log all the things I’ve seen so that I’m ready for our monthly site review meetings. I also prepare a risk review of sites report to go alongside this. These reports will then go onto our head of development, who utilises these details to further report on the scheme progress to our executive group and the board.

Partnerships benefit everyone

Next up I’m attending a catch-up with members of our home maintenance team. It’s important to know, whatever systems and accessories we put in, our new homes are a good standard, and ensure they’re both good for our customers and easy to maintain. An example of collaborative working is at our South Place development. We worked with Kingston Council from early doors to make sure the homes are designed in a way that fits the needs of the target audience they’ve profiled. This saves money as we’re future proofing the home, and the customer feels rewarded too.

Tackling defects and ensuring happy endings!

I’m in contact with customers from previous developments which I’ve project managed that are in the defects period. Today, I’m speaking to a customer whose heating isn’t working. As it’s a communal heating system, I contacted the management company who confirmed that they had issues in the plant and engineers were on site. They assured us that the system would be up again in the next hour. It’s nice to finish the day with a great outcome for them!

My perfect day

I love to start the day with a workout in the park – ideally the sun will be shining! I’m part of a group where we coach and empower women in different ways, everything from confidence to financial literacy matters. Recently, we put on a fashion show for charity and it was a huge success! Now we’re looking to do workshops on aromatherapy, health and wellness, and mindfulness – so I look forward to arranging a retreat for these women who will also learn a lot and get pampered! Who doesn’t like that? So a perfect day is looking ahead to this and planning for it.