A day in the life of a Grayce Consultant at a leading law firm

James Jones shares his experience as a Grayce Consultant

Last year Grayce launched a new option for Analysts completing the Development Programme and offered a route into consultancy, an additional year, year four, or L4 within Grayce. The role entails more consultancy type experience for Grayce Analysts. Here, Grayce Consultant, James Jones shares why he chose to continue his Grayce journey after graduating from our Development Programme and how he's adding value in his consultant role.

How do you support clients as a Grayce Consultant?

I joined Grayce in March 2016, and I've had varied client opportunities, spanning three very different industries, including a short term client placement in Amsterdam at Europe’s largest sportswear manufacturer.

I’m currently a Senior Process Improvement Technician at leading law firm, Irwin Mitchell. Before joining Grayce, I worked in law and did the Legal Practice Course, so my combination of qualifications, commercial experience and legal knowledge are ideal for this role.

Our team is comprised of myself, our manager who is Grayce Alumni and several junior Grayce Analysts. My team’s work straddles both Irwin Mitchell transformation programmes and business change, along with BAU work.

What do you nring to your client?

As this is my fourth Grayce client, I’m able to put everything that I’ve learnt over the last four years together at a high level. L4 brings that extra level of responsibility. You’re driving delivery, setting a good example and helping junior Grayce Analysts with their development – all whilst still getting support from Grayce.

Due to my experience on client site and the Grayce Programme, I can be relied upon to support the management and development of more junior Grayce Analysts. When improving business processes, we have to ensure that we understand the problem. We go in, document how it’s currently operating, create a vision to show how it’s going to look in future, and create a plan for delivering a solution.

Supporting Grayce Analysts to succeed

The team and I have gotten into a great rhythm and our junior Grayce Analysts are delivering change at quite a pace, as well as leading pieces of work by themselves. Considering they’re only at the start of their Grayce journeys, what they’ve achieved over the last few months is a massive step forward.

What surprised me about the L4 role is that you sometimes forget just how much you’ve learnt and how much you have to give back. Because I’m not their line manager, I’m able to have a more informal relationship with them and it’s been really rewarding to take on that mentorship type of role.

Why Grayce

For me, the most important aspect of Grayce is its development opportunities. What I love about Grayce is just how different each role is. In my four years at Grayce, I've worked in PMO, Project Management, Business Analyst and Test Lead roles - all before taking on my current Consultancy position.

What I like best about Grayce is the support network and the collaborative nature of the community. It’s changed so much over the last four years and I can really see that the HQ Team are constantly looking to make improvements.

Find out more about how Grayce supports leading organisations nationwide