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Congratulations to Felicity Robinson, who recently became a qualified lawyer within our Group Legal team. She joined Which? in 2013 and early on spotted an opportunity and moved to our London office as team assistant for the HR and Legal departments. She demonstrated an enthusiasm for legal work and secured a position as a paralegal. Over the next five and a half years Felicity completed her graduate diploma in law and legal practice course on a part-time basis, alongside her full-time paralegal role. She then started her training contract with us, covering commercial, IP, media and consumer law. She was supported by our fantastic team of lawyers and gained plenty of practical experience.
Over the past year, like many organisations, Which? has had to adapt to home working through the pandemic. Our group people director, Helen Moore, shares her thoughts. 'With Covid-19 restrictions continuing to relax as per the government’s roadmap, we’ve been thinking about how and when we return to our offices. I believe that we have a unique and exciting opportunity to make Which? a more flexible and inclusive employer that continues to deliver for UK consumers.' 'As we return to the office, we’ll be adopting a hybrid approach with our colleagues working across both their homes and our offices. We still don't have all the answers on how this will work in practice, but we’re committed to a 'test and learn' approach, where we’ll try new things and listen to our colleagues to get us to the solutions that are right for us. Watch this space!'
Our Head of engineering, Richard Hart, has held a wide range of roles in his 20 year career and the only thing that’s been constant is change. He talks about the changes he’s seen and the impact on him and his field, from the technologies we use to the perception of engineers. He's also re-evaluated how he measures his own productivity and success "As an individual contributor, the feeling of accomplishment is felt with every line of elegant code, every successful commit, every successful build, and every successful deployment to production."
We're proud to sponsor the Best Consumer Campaign Award, as part of the Sheila McKechnie Foundation Campaigns Awards. Congratulations to this year’s winner, Money and Mental Health Policy Institute, for successfully challenging and changing a harmful practice. The charity led a Stop the Debt Threats campaign to stop the use of intimidating letters sent to people in problem debt, which can cause serious psychological harm and, in some cases, contribute to people becoming suicidal.
Sheila McKechnie was a prolific consumer campaigner and was CEO of Which? from 1995-2005. We're proud to sponsor the Best Consumer Campaign Award, as part of the Sheila McKechnie Foundation Campaigns Awards which celebrate the best campaigns and campaigners who have made change happen – most effectively, creatively and courageously whether working locally or nationally in the UK.
This year's Mental Health Awareness Week is all about providing practical tools that everyone can use to improve their mental health and increase their resiliency, regardless of their personal situation. Gardening is a great way to engage with nature, and even if you don't have a garden tending window boxes or indoor plants can aid wellbeing. Our Which? Facebook gardening group has positively blossomed during lockdown, with experts and beginners sharing tips and photos.
Lee Chan, FRSA, policy research manager, recently did an interview with Colour Of Research (CORe) as part of its Asian Amplification series https://lnkd.in/gcv4npt. She talks about her background, her career and how her ethnicity has shaped her personally and at work. Lee also shares her personal experiences of prejudice and the support she has found in allyship at Which?.
Online scams are ruining lives. The government must include scams in the Online Safety Bill now and give online platforms a legal responsibility to identify, remove and prevent fake and fraudulent content on their sites. We've joined forces with 16 other organisations across industry, civil society and law enforcement to champion consumers, by sending a joint letter to the government.
Which? scooped the award for best in-house team in PRCA’s Workplace Champion awards! Helen Moore, head of People at Which?, said: 'I’m proud of how our communications team has really embraced the measures Which? has put in place to ensure a positive and inclusive workplace, and this award is recognition of how the team has really carried the torch for colleague wellbeing.'
Our head of Money, Gareth Shaw, wrote an op-ed for the Mail on Sunday a couple of weeks ago detailing how the banking industry is failing victims of bank transfer scams. It is vital that the regulator, supported by the government, takes urgent action to introduce mandatory protections for victims and does not allow banks to simply write the rules of a new reimbursement code.
