As she approaches her 20th anniversary working at Bex, we sat down with Mel Conway, our operations manager, to find out about her journey with us in our first meet the team interview.
We discussed her favourite part of the role, the reasons she’s stayed with us so long and why she spends her weekends at football training.
Tell us about your role.
My job title is operations manager, but that doesn’t tell the full story! After going off on maternity leave to have my twin girls, I couldn’t go back to working full time, but I loved working at Bex and I wanted to stay. I was able to almost make my own role.
I picked up a bit of sales, inherited accounts and completed an ISO Internal Auditor course to enable me to take on responsibility for auditing and writing our processes and procedures as well. I was able to build myself a role and it developed from there.
I happily pitch in everywhere, this has enabled me to have a well rounded understanding of all the roles here at Bex.
Other than screen printing there’s not much I can’t do at Bex! It’s hard to describe my role as it’s so varied, but I enjoy it and every week is different to the next.
When did you join Bex?
I initially joined Bex as a graphic art worker 20 years ago and Ian Board, who is now chairman at Bex, was also in the studio at that point so he trained me.
I joined the company just after college, where I studied for a BTEC Diploma in Fine Art and Design, and I worked in the studio for about eight years. Ian moved on to the sales side so I stepped up as the head of the studio which I very much enjoyed.
What is your favourite part of the role?
That’s difficult! I really enjoy auditing because I like the methodology of it all and it gives me the opportunity to work more closely with the team in production. Since taking over the quality management system I have been able to put my own stamp on it and have completely overhauled the previous system. Auditing has allowed me to learn every aspect of all the processes that we offer here at Bex.
What is it about Bex that’s meant you’ve stayed for 20 years?
Even though I’ve been at Bex 20 years, I like change. That’s one of the great things about Bex, even though we have very good staff retention, it’s a completely different company than when I first started as we’ve grown and developed so much.
We never stand still and we’re always investing so there’s always something new that we can offer to clients. At the end of the day if it’s flat, we’ll print on it!
We’ve added a lot more strings to our bow over the years and that means we can keep everything in house rather than outsourcing. We have full control over what we offer.
Bex evolves with the times and I love that because every year is a bit different one way or another.
What do you like to do in your free time away from work?
I’m quite sociable and I enjoy seeing my friends. I do bootcamp training, and I enjoy life as a Mum. My little boy is really into football so my weekends are taken up with football!
Family life is very busy and so it doesn’t give me a lot of free time but I wouldn’t have it any other way.
