"Ideas can come from anywhere in the business, and they will be considered no matter who puts them on the table"
Emma Peron - Head of Operations and Programme Management
What is your role at realestate.co.nz?
My team and I make sure the business runs smoothly and
efficiently. If we do our job right, no one thinks about us. This
is both the great and sad thing about operations; we don’t come to
mind often unless things are broken.
I look
after the business's operations, our data department, our
technical support function, and our Client Support team. These are
all the areas that support one of our goals at realestate.co.nz -
ease of doing business with
us.
Where did you start? And how has your role grown and evolved over time?
I started back in 2012 when there were only 12 employees. I had
just moved to New Zealand from the UK, and I got a job in the
Customer Support team on a maternity cover contract. At that time,
we were a team of two, and part of my job was to bank cheques and
check the fax machine for orders – we had quite a manual system
back then.
As our business grew, a Team Lead
role was created, which I had the opportunity to apply for. I went
on to lead the team for five years, during which time I completed
my Prince2 qualifications.
After this, I could
see an opportunity to move into a Business Analysis role – again,
our business was growing, and we had a lot of data but didn’t know
what to do with it. I took it upon myself to create a role and
start making use of the data to provide market updates and
commentary to the industry and property seekers. I also became
more heavily involved in the engineering team workflow and
completed my qualification in Agile Project management.
In 2018, I could see that our website needed a Product Manager. It
wasn’t a skillset we had in the business, and this was hurting our
growth. I took on this challenge for a couple of years, increasing
my skillset with an online Product Management course through
Boston University.
When I had taken the product
as far as I could, given all my experience across the different
departments in the business, I created a role to help project
manage all the streams of work that were being delivered within
our business.
Today, I have grown the team to
include Data and Technical Support, as well as picking back up the
Client Support team. These teams all work together to enhance our
customer experience, make it easy to do business with us, and
deliver great results for people buying, selling, and renting
property.
The latest step in my journey was the
completion of a certificate from Stanford Business School - The
Emerging COO: Driving Innovation and Operational Excellence.
How has realestate.co.nz changed over your tenure?
We have grown from 12 staff to over 60 across the country, we no longer accept cheques or faxes, and my team is larger than the whole company was when I started. We have many more processes and have experienced growing pains, but we have not lost our innovative and creative culture. As someone who likes to grow her career, I am grateful that I have been able to grow as the company has grown, and I feel like we are only just at the beginning.
How have you changed since you’ve been at realestate.co.nz?
When you go from being in customer service, answering phones and customer emails, to running four departments, you must adapt to succeed. I have continued to put myself through courses, learn on the job and through education, as well as from the awesome team here at realestate.co.nz. In operations, you must be detailed, but to run departments, you also need to be strategic and see the big picture – that has been one of my greatest challenges, but with the support of the Executive Leadership Team and our Board of Directors, I feel like I am growing this skill every year.
What do you love most about working at realestate.co.nz?
That ideas can come from anywhere in the business, and they will be considered no matter who puts them on the table – in fact, most of the good ideas come from the teams on the ground. They see our customers' and clients’ challenges and opportunities and return them to HQ. It’s a real benefit of having a flat structure.
What is one piece of advice that you’d give to someone who is coming to work at realestate.co.nz?
An incredible group of people work here, so trust they will do the best for you and make sure you are your ‘best self’ in return.
Enjoying Emma's story?
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