blog: A typical week working at ITP
Friday 21st February 2020
Having just completed my first five months at ITP, and as a fairly new starter, I thought it was perfect to provide the real inside track on life as an Associate at ITP!
My work often focuses on projects with people at the heart of them, to try and help them understand how to make positive sustainable travel changes, understand all the choices available to them, and to better design the environment in which we travel. This can be anything from proposing a new cycle lane to supporting employees in making those new travel choices.
The opportunity to work on a wide variety of projects, and the ethos of ITP to work on projects in places where change is needed, is one of the things that attracted me to join as an Associate. Since I started here, I have already experienced a range of projects (literally from the first week!) covering different transport planning disciplines, which has been a great bonus and matched my initial impression of the company.
As well as this, the encouragement and support to work flexibly was a big attraction to me, something my colleague Tim recently wrote about in his blog. I work part time (3.5 days a week) and spend the rest of my week entertaining my daughter – both of which are fun, challenging and rewarding jobs!
Here's a typical week for me...
Monday
Today I’m heading to Hemel Hempstead for a meeting with our project team, which began in my first week here. I'm the project manager and we are writing the Sustainable Transport Strategy for the town which incorporates the new Hemel Garden Communities area – a real opportunity to set a long-term vision and strategy for the town to travel more sustainably as it grows and develops. I head into the office first, to catch up after being out of the office since Wednesday, and prepare for the week before heading for my train.
Although I’m technically in the Smarter Travel team, this project falls within Transport Strategy so it's a great opportunity for me to work across teams on a project that suits my skills and develops my expertise - something I was really keen to do when I joined ITP.
The meeting itself is a chance for us to review the work to date, and we come away with lots of ideas, suggestions for changes, agreements on objectives and new information from the client team. So, lots to do…a hot chocolate on the train home helps me warm up and digest everything!
Tuesday
A day in the office today which is always welcome. It’s good to catch up with everyone, particularly my colleague Kirsty who has joined me to help develop our Smarter Travel team here in the West Midlands. We are often discussing our ideas for projects and opportunities.
One of our new projects is working with West Midlands Trains on the ‘Stations as Places’ project. As part of a panel of consultants, we are developing over 100 prospectuses to outline the opportunities at stations across the West Midlands Trains network to encourage sustainable travel to the station, improving station facilities, and to set out how to achieve these changes. We have an internal team meeting today to discuss the project, the stations we are working on, and to share information.
Our Smarter Travel team is spread across our five offices and we have a monthly call (happening today) to discuss what projects we’re all working on, any training and development opportunities. Despite being dotted around the country, there are lots of ways to communicate and assist us in working together and these calls help make this happen – the rest is up to us!
Wednesday
I work from home one morning a week. It's a good opportunity to catch up on emails, tasks, and to try and arrange some future meetings, like my first mentor session with a senior member of the team at ITP. I think supporting all members of staff at all levels of a company is really important, so I’m looking forward to this.
Thursday
After dropping my daughter off at nursery, I head for the train as I’m attending the Act Travelwise national conference today (in Birmingham). I am one of the Midlands Regional reps for Act TravelWise and we are currently organising a series of regional meetings and webinars on topics that members have requested. ITP has a stand to share the type of projects we work on.
It’s a great opportunity to catch up with colleagues and friends from previous projects and for some of our newer staff to attend their first conference.
I also listened to some great speakers discussing how the sustainable transport and planning worlds combine to integrate sustainable transport into towns, city centres, and through new developments or existing places – very topical with my current projects in mind!
After a busy week it’s time to set my out of office… not before winning a space hopper in the business card draw at the end of the conference and considering how we can introduce space hopper races in the office next week…
If you like the sound of working at ITP, we are currently looking for someone to join us as an Associate, so click here to find out more about the role and how you can apply.