DHL Corporate Responsibility Manager Tanya enjoys her career

DHL's colleagues are at the heart of what it does, and they excel in their daily roles to teach and live best practices.

Meet Tanya, Corporate Responsibility Manager at DHL Supply Chain. Tanya is always looking at ways to develop herself and make sure she is doing the best to support the communities through the DHL UK Foundation. Here, she discusses her career progression and how she encourages colleagues to get involved with charities and communities.

"I work for the internal communications and engagement team and I look after our community programs so, basically I am responsible encouraging colleagues to get involved in our charitable and community programs through volunteering fundraising or donating goods," says Tanya.

Opportunity to try various roles

Tanya started as a temp as a Junior Secretary for one of DHL's Business Unit Directors and after six months was offered the role to become a permanent employee with DHL.

"Since then I became a PA and also had the opportunity to take up a variety of roles over the last 20 years. So anything from talent management, learning and development, sustainability and project management. I've also had the opportunity to work with the DHL UK foundation for a couple of years before I started this role back in 2015," shares Tanya.

"Over the last 20 years I've seen all sorts of changes when it comes to the way colleagues get involved with supporting their local charities and communities - for instance fundraising and sponsorship used to be a huge thing back in the day whereas nowadays, we're open to getting involved in different ways like donating goods or volunteering our time. From a business perspective because we're such a large organization we're really focused on making sure that in the communities where we live and work we're having a lasting positive impact every day."

Making a positive impact to the local community

Every day as a business DHL is making a positive impact to its local community through one of its activities. Tanya explains: "More and more you see colleagues getting involved and being really passionate about making a difference. When I think about different things I can do as my role to keep it fresh and interesting, as well as creating new programs and activities for our colleagues to get involved with, I need to think about myself and how I can be better to support our colleagues across the business."

Skill development in the workplace

"I was looking through the different opportunities we have through our apprenticeship scheme and although there wasn't a degree available," says Tanya. "I'd looked around and there was a digital marketing one through Aston University, so I was able to pull a business case together, speak to the apprenticeship talent team and also my line manager who were fully supportive. I'm really looking forward to learning more about digital marketing and how it can help me come up with more creative campaigns and encourage more colleagues to get involved in our community programs, and also from a wider team perspective it will really help our internal communications and engagement team," explains Tanya.