Today marks Scottish Results Day and the annual Developing the Young Workforce (DYW) #NoWrongPath campaign. The campaign aims to inspire and reassure young people receiving their results, showing that there is no wrong path.
To support the campaign, Movement to Work’s Gemma Davies, Head of Talent and Regional Development, has volunteered her story.
Gemma joined the Movement to Work team in March 2024 on secondment from Tesco and has worked for Tesco for nearly 19 years. During this time, she has held various roles within stores and, for the past six years, has served as an HR People Partner within the Distribution function.
This is her path.
“I was never particularly academic and finished school not really having any idea of what I wanted to do as a career.
I just about got the grades I needed to go to sixth form to do my A levels but had to re-sit English whilst doing them. I got a part-time job in a Tesco petrol station close to home whilst studying. This was always meant to be a stop gap until I figured out what I wanted to do.
I decided to go to university as I was still unsure what to do as a career, and it felt like the right thing to do. I dropped out of university after a few months as I just was really not enjoying it. My store manager at work had seen something in me that I hadn’t and recommended that I start the options (development) program in Tesco. I thought I would do this while I was figuring out my future.
I learnt quickly and was soon promoted and became full time. An opportunity came up for Tesco to pay for me to study for a foundation degree in retail a year or so later and I was accepted and completed this two-year course alongside my full-time work. Studying felt different this time as I already had a lot of the practical knowledge, I started to enjoy learning the theories and rationale of what I was doing and why I was doing it that way and gave me the courage to challenge things that I thought we could change and improve.
Towards the end of this course, I was also lucky enough to be part of a fast-track academy to become a store manager, the learning and experience I had gained over the last couple of years really supported me to be successful here and I loved my job.
I later decided I fancied a change from retail and was curious to learn new skills and formats, so I went into Distribution as a People Partner (HR). I had no HR qualifications but again was really keen to learn and develop on the job. 5 years later Tesco put me through my HR qualification, and I completed my CIPD experience assessment. This allowed me to gain my qualification on the back of my experiences rather than learning and then going and putting it all into practice.
I would never have been given some of these opportunities had I not already been a Tesco employee as I had no experience or qualifications to do the roles until they invested time, effort and energy and training into me. I feel so lucky for working in an organisation that have given me so much, I was very driven and worked really hard but there were so many people along the way that have helped me, and I am truly grateful for that.
Supporting other people to develop has been one of my biggest passions since I began in a management role. It’s an incredible feeling to see someone grow in confidence and thrive. Choosing the right organisation is key and there are so many great employers out there that offer internal training to really help to support those of us that maybe didn’t get the qualifications we wanted or decided the academic route wasn’t for us. Don’t close yourself off, understand what careers are available within an organisation and how they can support you. Sometimes once you have your foot in the door the opportunities are endless!”
Connect with Gemma on LinkedIn