Stuart Daniels recently celebrated 10 years working at Magna, and we’d like to share a bit about his story and career journey.
Stuart grew up helping his family run a plumbing business at the weekends, and when he left college at the age of 19, he joined the management training scheme at a large department store. He said:
“I started out in a supermarket but also spent time in their department stores – that’s where I learned my customer service skills, and they’ve been a tremendous help ever since! I became a manager and was often called in to help with new store openings. That meant I travelled around quite a bit.”
Stuart re-joined the family business as a general manager for a while before moving on to join a care home company running refurbishment projects. He continued:
“I was on the road and away from home a lot. After four years sustaining that pace and with a young family, I hit burnout. My work-life balance was all wrong. When the opportunity at Magna came up, I knew straight away it was the right role for me.
“Initially, I learned through practical experience. I’ve done lots of short skills-based courses but three years ago I started an HNC through Weymouth College. I really enjoyed it and it’s great to have the formal qualification under my belt.”
Stuart is now a Project Surveyor at Magna, focusing on specialist and urgent works, with a varied skillset which makes him invaluable to our customers and colleagues. He’s currently enrolled on a RICS expert witness course which is focused on dispute resolution to further his learning and development. He finished by saying:
“From this course, I hope to achieve Chartered Institute of Building accreditation.
“Social housing has changed a lot since I first inspected in the 90s and, rightly, the focus is now more on the customer. Getting the balance right is so important, and interaction and communication play a really important part in that.
“I’d have never thought this is what I’d end up doing and who knows what’s around the corner, but I enjoy what I do, and I get a real sense of achievement from it. I like Magna, and I like where I am. The flexibility and support offset the fact that it can be stressful at times – that brings balance.”
We’re proud to have dedicated and experienced colleagues like Stuart who strive to provide a great service to our customers in everything that they do.
