Lindsey Millen, National Australia
Group Bank; Glasgow – November 2010
Lindsey is a Senior customer Partner with the National Australia
Group (NAG) bank. In this country this includes the Clydesdale and
the Yorkshire Banks. She is one of their senior complaints handler
so I was pleased to discover that she appears to have a permanent
bright outlook and manner. That she has not been ground down by the
context of her work.
One of the things Lindsey says keeps her sane is the role she
plays within Unite as a ULR. She has a strong sense of what is
right and wrong. This lead her to become a Unite rep around 3 years
ago, and for the past 8 months a ULR as well. Other sanity inducing
activities include cycling, running and diving; travel, food the
cinema and walking and watching the wildlife of her home island of
Lewis. With her high pressure work she needs them all at
times.
She became a ULR as a consequence of her Unite rep role. Lindsey
applied for seconded time to establish workplace learning across
the bank in Scotland and got it. She works closely with Walton
Pantland, the Unite Learning Organiser for her company.
One of Lindsey's 1st projects was to get computer courses up and
running, starting with the European Computer Driving Licence
(ECDL). As one colleague said to her “I've learned more on this
course in 2 hours than in the whole previous 9 months. The group as
a whole have now passed 6 modules already.
Lindsey started developing training in head office in Glasgow
because there are a lot of people people in one place. Her next
project is to pilot training into some of the other smaller sites
on the east coast and Fife. She tells me that she has had a
surprisingly positive response. “People in this satellite offices
sometimes feel that they are left out of initiatives and forgotten.
They see this access to quality training as really good.” This
really goes to show how much one determined person can achieve in
such a short time with the support of the union.
Ian Scott
Learning Development coordinator.
Unite the Union
