Secondment Story - Emma Gammage

Secondment Profile
Emma Gammage

Emma, a Senior Teaching Technician at the School of Biological and Behavioural Sciences, shares her secondment story.

Tell us about your current role 

Right now, I'm a Senior Teaching Technician in the School of Biological and Behavioural Sciences. I am responsible for one of the teaching labs in the Joseph Priestley building and my role is to make sure the practical experiments for undergraduate and foundation students are prepared. We have all kinds of courses including biology, zoology, medical genetics, pharmacology, and neuroscience.  We can fit up to 100 students, so it is very busy. 
 
I'm responsible for general lab management and the health and safety of the team and any users that come into the lab. That includes students, demonstrators, and academics.  I line manage two assistant technicians and allocate them to practicals and to assist the main teaching technician. 

How did you get into this role?  

I graduated with a masters in research.  It was a year-long project of pure research and if I'm honest, I didn't enjoy it very much. The research side I found just wasn't for me. It's quite competitive and you need a lot of experience. That affected my perception of the research side of science.  

I got a job as a lab technician at St Georges’, which was in teaching.  I was there for about a year and a half, but it was only part-time. A full-time teaching technician post came up at Queen Mary after the pandemic. I started  at Queen Mary in 2021. 

In 2022 I progressed into a Senior Technician post and then in 2023 my manager went on maternity leave and I applied for the maternity cover for her post. As I was an existing member of the team it was offered as a secondment. 
 

How do you think the Secondment helped your career and your development? 

I got a lot of experience dealing with line management, so I went from line managing two technicians to a team of seven or eight technicians, that was quite a big jump in terms of responsibility. I learned a lot of HR stuff and I learned a lot about Queen Mary's policies in terms of leave etc.  

I also got a lot of experience managing multiple teaching labs, making sure that I was paying attention to three labs simultaneously, allocating  support for practicals for a whole team.  
Each teaching technician is assigned certain practicals in the timetable,  I needed to make sure that they were evenly distributed and everyone had a balanced workload.  

I had to do a lot of training and inductions for demonstrators and making sure that they had the relevant training and skills and attended the practicals they were supposed to.  

Were there any people that supported you during the secondment? 

My line manager at the time and the Head of Technical Facilities was very supportive and scheduled one to ones every two weeks. We could just catch up or we could have a discussion if something came up. I found that very beneficial. 

The team really supported me as well. We've got a hectic schedule, so we're quite a close team. 

The team were very understanding and any time I asked for help, or I needed to make some changes or difficult decisions, they were always on board. I felt I had what I needed from my manager at the time and the team as well.  

Did the secondment present any barriers or challenges?  

Although I was managing my existing colleagues, they made it really easy for me and that fortunately wasn’t a challenge. 

There were some new situations that I came across e.g. making reasonable adjustments for students, working out how to deliver new practicals and experiments that I wasn’t so familiar with. I found I had to learn a lot of new things in a short amount of time and deal with new people. But everyone understood the situation and was helpful. 

I also felt I became more desk-based during the secondment as there was more admin which required a computer. Also more meetings! As a teaching technician you’re usually hands-on with setting up and putting away equipment and it is easier to track what needs to be done and monitor your workload. Sometimes after sitting at a desk, I felt that I didn’t have anything to show for my day and that was quite a change for me personally.   

Now that the secondment has come to an end, have you had some time to reflect on the experience and consider what’s next for you? 

The secondment lasted 8 months and I’ve started the new academic year in my substantive role. I definitely see myself as a Lab Manager and managing facilities in future. I think I need a bit more experience before progressing on to something else. I’d like to do another secondment or perhaps help with a project in a research lab next summer. I spoke to my manager, and she suggested that I shadow a Facility Manager next summer and see if I can gain any more experience from doing something like that. 

Have you got any advice to anyone considering a secondment? 

If the opportunity is there, I would definitely say to go for it because you have nothing really to lose, you still have your substantive role. Even if you’re a bit unsure or nervous, go for it as giving yourself some independence and opportunity outside the scope of your job description really helps as well. That’s how I’ve gained my experience and how I’ve progressed my career.