Flexibility to pursue your passions

Sarah is the Digital Procurement Lead for the Lendlease Property Business. During office hours she looks at different technology to enhance the procurement lifecycle and our supply chain, whilst outside of work she competes in Ironman triathlons around Australia and volunteers with Australian Kookaburra Kids Foundation, an organisation dedicated to supporting children who live in families affected by mental illness.

We talk to Sarah about how she balances her career with her passions.

I truly believe without the support of Lendlease and my manager, I wouldn’t be able to achieve what I am achieving today.

I started with Lendlease in 2011 in Western Australia working in HR on our mining maintenance contract before relocating to Sydney in 2015 to join our Operational Excellence team in Property. Coming off a project site, and being young and ambitious, I was working 12-14hrs a day as I believed it showed dedication and commitment.

For me, flexible working was for parents doing the ‘drop off / pick up.’ Since moving to Sydney I’ve changed my perspective entirely. With the support of my manager and senior Lendlease leadership I now work flexibly to meet my other commitments to sport and volunteering.

9 months ago I fell in love with the sport of triathlon and have since competed in 3 Ironman – 70.3 events, with another 3 in the pipeline. I love a challenge and have set myself some pretty big goals over the next 12 months.

An average training week consists of 18hours, training 2-3hours per day. Some days I’ll be at work at 6:45am and head off early, others I will take a longer lunch break and head across to the pool at lunchtime or out for a run.

It’s fair to say it takes up a lot of time and I feel very fortunate to be able to work flexibly to allow me to achieve my goals.

I also volunteer with Kookaburra Kids, a not-for-profit who support kids living in families affected by mental illness. Watching these kids grow over the weekend camps is so rewarding, and knowing they walk away more connected and informed is truly satisfying. Lendlease introduced me to volunteering and has actively supported me in making a further contribution to the community.

Throughout all this, over the past 12months, I have successfully delivered and handed off one of my projects, been lucky enough to be selected to be a part of the 2017 cohort of Lendlease’s leadership development program Aspire, and have transitioned into a new role with some exciting projects in the pipeline.

Through finding this balance and changing my mindset on ‘long hours is the only way forward,’ I have gained so much strength, understanding, and determination, and it is with that that I bring a better version of myself to work every single day.

For me, it’s great to see leaders at Lendlease ‘walking the flexibility talk’. It’s all very well having policies on these things, however seeing senior leaders endorse and take these opportunities also, makes me feel more comfortable in following suit.

This post was written for FlexCareers by Caroline Hafey, Global Talent Acquisition Strategy Manager, People & Culture, Lendlease.

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