Blog

​Recently we welcomed back Judy Cole after her second maternity leave. We sit down with her to catch up on what’s she’s been up to, changes at Speller and what she’s most looking forward to now she’s back!

How did you spend your maternity leave?

I spent my maternity leave enjoying getting to know my beautiful daughter Maddie. She has settled into our family well and has her dad, brother and I wrapped around her little finger! I was able to switch off from work for the first few months which was really nice.

I quickly realised my house was too small for 2 x kids and 3 x dogs so took advantage of not working and bought and renovated a new house in Brighton East while also completing the process for permits and design to knock down and rebuild our old house. I really enjoyed mixing it up and managing trades rather than sales people!

I have also been planning our wedding, this has been delayed a couple of times due to COVID but is now going ahead on 2nd January so I’m really looking forward to hosting my family and friends from the UK for Christmas and they can finally meet my children!

What’s changed at Speller?

I didn’t fully “let go” of work on maternity leave and while I had the opportunity to not get involved in the day to day (due to the fantastic team at Speller) it was a great opportunity to take stock and realign strategy and goals for the future.

Jack, Damien and I took time earlier on this year to do some offsite planning with and external provider and implement a strategy and internal team structure in order to achieve our 2027 goals.

In the last 12 months we have hired 5 new employees, restructured the backoffice team to allow for growth, automated processes and promoted 2 existing employees into leadership positions.

Like many companies, we have found it a challenge to find and attract new talent internally but have actively taken steps to overcome this.

• We are currently going through a brand refresh (Watch the space!) which will see an update of our logo, colours, website, marketing material, newsletter and merchandise.

• We have introduced a 6 week annual leave for all of our internal employees. During and post COVID our team have never worked harder and never been so accessible. We believe it’s important for mental and physical health for them to take a true break and with boarders now reopened, there is catching up to do!

• We are also facing the end of an era at Speller and will be moving away from Carlton, the suburb that has housed us for 22 years. With our refreshed brand and commitment to growth, we are in final negotiations on a new office in Southbank (lets not jinx it!) which will put us closer to public transport and more central for all our employees and give us a much needed refresh.

• Implemented a charitable partnership with The Smith Family. This has been a passion of mine over the last year. We really wanted to work with underprivileged children/young adults as I believe we have a lot to offer as a company and individuals. Myself and some of the team have recently got our Working with Children’s Checks so that we can take part in “job jump” (read about it here), mentoring, career days etc. We will update you with more news on this later and watch out for ways in which you can assist too.

We are currently looking for office space in Perth as Mary Vidovich (Senior SAP Account Manager) has relocated back to Perth and has identified this a growth area for us. Once this is finalised we will have offices in 3 cities across Australian (Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth)

Business is going well (like most IT companies) and rather than just “ride the wave” we are utilising this time to invest in the future for our employees and company.

What are you looking forward to most about being back at work?

Mostly speaking to adults again!

I love being back in the office and working with the Speller team. I’m also very excited to have a solid run at building the CloudApps Consulting business (specialising in other Cloudbased ERPs)

I’m enjoying meeting up with customers again and I’m looking forward to the SAUG in Melbourne where I can catch up with everyone who I haven’t seen for 2 years!

I’m excited about the future of Speller and CloudApps and have confidence in achieving our goals. I’m really proud of our team and our culture and I’m confident that we have great foundations to grow and offer opportunities moving forward.