Day in the Life

As part of our new ‘Day in the life’ series, we’re interviewing employees of all levels, across all areas of the business to learn a bit more about them and how we all work together here at Three.

Today we’re getting to know Chris Gasnier

Vital stats:

• Name: Chris Gasnier
• Job title: Senior CSR Communications Manager
• Function: Corporate Communications
• Tenure: 2.5 years

Tell us a bit about yourself

I grew up in Hampshire and went to University in Cardiff where I gained a degree in Economics and Accounting (a bit different to what I am doing now!). After graduating, I moved to London where I lived and worked for over 10 years, before making the move back to Southampton to be close to family again. I live with my husband, Jay, and our French Bulldog, Braxton, who can quite often be heard snoring if you are on a Teams call with me.

In a nutshell, describe your role and how you support our business objectives

My role is to lead the communication of our CSR and sustainability workstreams, either by supporting those relevant people and teams in the business who lead on their subject matters (e.g. Inclusion and Environment) or by leading workstreams myself in the Community space. I am responsible for our corporate charity partner, Samaritans, as well as other schemes and initiatives including our Community Fund and Reconnected programme.  My job title features the acronym CSR – this means Corporate Social Responsibly, and in a nutshell, it is all the stuff that Three does to be a good corporate citizen both internally and externally.

What does a typical day look like in your role?

Like many, a lot of my days are spent in meetings catching up and collaborating on various projects – but the days when I am out and about meeting with our partners and people are often the most rewarding. I recently attended a morning at a Samaritans listening centre in Guildford, where I met with our account team Sam and Jack and the Branch Director, Nick. I was able to see first-hand for the very first time a listening centre run by Samaritans and meet with some of the volunteers who were taking calls. This was the first time since we’ve been working with Samaritans that we’ve been able to visit one of their centres due to Covid, and it really brings to life the difference we’re making with the partnership.

What is on the cards for 2022 in your world?

The work we’re doing in CSR and sustainability has really started to resonate with everyone at Three (according to the end of year Pulse survey results!) and that has been really heart-warming to see. A lot of activity, for instance choosing a charity partner, was new for us at Three. Last year was all about getting the basics in place and some initial initiatives launched.

This year will all be about embedding those initiatives and projects and making the most out of them through the year. We’ll be celebrating the first year of our Samaritans partnership in Q1 and we have lot more plans with them to bring to life both internally and externally. It was great to finally welcome the team into Green Park this week, we’ll be heading up to the Glasgow office next month and you’ll start to see more of them if you’re out in Retail.

Aside from Samaritans, you may have seen we recently joined the UK National Databank, in collaboration with Good Things Foundation.

How have you found returning to the office?

We went from two extremes, and in my case, I was working 4 days in the office to then working 5 days at home. Returning to the office has been yet another change and something probably more difficult to get used to than when we all started working from home. My biggest worry was losing that downtime between Teams meetings when you could reply to emails and messages. I quickly found out that when you’re in the office, it is best to be completely present and not try and crash through your inbox – have a quick scan, reply to anything urgent, but unless you have some free time, don’t push yourself to reply to everything instantly. I think we’ll all need to adapt again and maybe the old-fashioned phone call might make a comeback in 2022? Despite reservations about returning, I didn’t realise how much I missed that human interaction and just general banter with the team – removing the barrier of a screen and webcam really does work wonders!

Give us a fun fact…

Some of you may already know this, but I worked on cruise ships for two years doing onboard communication to guests and crew – it was the best experience, I met my husband and visited countless countries and places I could only dream of. I’ve circumnavigated the world, lost 24 hours and gained 24 hours (crossing the international date line) and endured a week of 25-hour days. If you ever hear yourself, say “I wish there were more hours in the day”, please know from my experience, the reality is very different, and you probably wouldn’t!