Dale Brassington

Since August 2024, As City Manager, I have undertaken the role to continue City Management for the East of England, including Cambridge, Norwich, Ipswich and Peterborough.

The role itself has not changed in responsibility, other than a downscale following a restructure of the UK organisation in line with the 5 year growth plan.

Stepping into City Management was a change that involved stepping away from the local centre operations, instead focussing on centre performances, standards, and customer relations in a more senior and directorial role, compared to the localised Team Leader role, previous.

Overall, reviewing the performance of 20 centres from Nottingham to Luton and Eastwards towards Norwich and Ipswich, whilst also supporting an additional 6 franchise centres in their escalation and operational needs.

Stepping into the Team Lead role was initially challenging, being based in one region whilst managing another, however I was able to learn and adapt my skills to essentially manage and support the team remotely, all the while ensuring that I was able to provide leadership and direction for employees, supervising activities to drive productivity and efficiency, whilst coaching team members through new or difficult workflows and delegating tasks to make best use of individuals' skills and supporting my team to overcome new challenges and take all changes in a positive manner to achieve their best performance.

As Community Manager, my primary focus was to ensure that customers at the business centre were able to utilise workspace to grow and develop their own companies; by managing the facilities, services, accounts, sales and standards of the centre on the centres behalf, ensuring that customers can focus on their own work and company.

During this time, I have been posted to several regions to provide additional support as an experienced team member; providing induction and training to most employees within the local regions. Akin to inducting and developing the local teams, I have also covered cities such as Glasgow as an interim team leader, supporting 5 centres from recruitment through to daily operations and performance reviews.

As a Customer Support Representative, I was the face of the company, supporting all customer enquiries at the reception of the building, whilst resolving customer issues effectively, using strong interpersonal skills and conflict resolution techniques to provide appropriate solutions to guarantee positive outcomes. As part of the daily operations, I also lead the Meeting Room and Virtual Office sections of the business, to ensure that all external customers were supported with their needs, from Call Handling through to specialist catering.

My experience with MWB put me in good step to move forward with the merger of MWB and Regus, supporting the changes in management, systems, customer experiences and product development.

As Assistant Manager, I operated the Front of House management role, covering the restaurant, functions and bar management. It was my duty to ensure that team rotas were issued two weeks prior to commencement, to provide the correct level of service based on the upcoming bookings and local events. As part of the management role, I was responsible for opening/closing procedures, money handling and banking, reception and function management including wedding and event planning and communications with the kitchen and services teams.

My initial time with the Hardwicke Arms Hotel started in August 2003, where I joined the team as a kitchen porter. From here, I learnt basic cooking skills, developing my dessert skills more so and grew to assist in the kitchen services during functions and sunday roasts. After a year, I stepped up into the Restaurant service team, when larger functions took place to gain the customer service skills required for the next development of bar services. Once I was able to step into the Bar Services role, I was also offered a full time role as Assistant Manager, based on my quick learnings and skills development. Along with the Assistant Management role, I undertook additional training for Bar Management and Cellar Management as well as my NVQ3 for Customer Services.