A first-hand account from… Javier Bello, HR Global Operations team, London
‘If you think my English is bad now, it was horrible when I was in Spain!’
I started working at Telefónica Digital because I was very keen to work somewhere challenging, interesting and where I could use and develop my English language skills.
I studied computer science at ICADE University in Madrid and originally worked in sales and marketing roles. I worked in a range of businesses from a start up to the car manufacturer, Peugeot. Marketing gave me a good grounding in many business skills such as understanding and analysing large quantities of data but I was so keen to develop my English that I gave it all up, including my own flat in Spain, to move to the UK.
Originally I got a job in a hotel, purely to get my English up to scratch but of course I was looking for something more stimulating in a growing business. As Telefónica is a Spanish company, I felt at home but also loved the fact that at Digital it felt like a new business because it is a new division.
In my role… as a member of the global HR operations team, I’m responsible for creating management information that enables the leadership team to make data driven decisions. This has given me a real insight to the scale of the business as well as the scale of the opportunity that we have at Tef Digital.
What I find really different about working here… is that everything is new and I have the opportunity to find my own way of managing some very large projects – my own blueprint. Everything is so new that we are all working together to build something up from scratch. There is no template.
I also love meeting and working with people from so many different countries and cultures. The other day I was in a meeting with people in the UK, on the phone from Spain and Latin America. All of these people have their own ways of working but everyone is very collaborative.
One thing we can be proud of is… the development of new HR technology in the form of Aura24. It’s very innovative and will transform our global operations and the way we work. Working on a project of this scale has been a unique experience for me.
I work with so many people from all over the world and I do think the friendships and relationships I’ve made here are very important – often people are away from home so we see each other at weekends as well as after work.
And, hey, this is London – the capital of Europe. There’s so much going on here, we’re never short of things to do!
