Meet the Project Manager - Edward Coleman

The pandemic coincided with two career trends, 2021 became the year of ‘The Great Resignation’, shortly after another emerged ‘the boomerang employee’. More and more people are choosing to return to a company they’ve previously worked for. According to LinkedIn, ‘boomerang’ employees accounted for 5% of all new hires in 2021, up from 3.9% in 2019. We chat to our own ‘boomerang’ Project Manager, Edward Coleman about his return journey to BAE Systems Digital Intelligence. 

 

The Covid pandemic saw dramatic changes to our everyday lives, with the majority working from home becoming the new norm.  It also affected the way many people felt about their jobs. 2021 became the year of ‘The Great Resignation’ with people quitting their jobs in huge numbers.

 

After the disruption of the pandemic and the labour market started to recover, resignations rolled in at a record rate. Data published by the UK’s Labour Force Survey in November 2021 showed that, of the 1.02 million people who changed jobs between July and September 2021, 391,000 of them had resigned – the highest spike ever recorded by the LFS. Across the pond, the picture was much the same with 4.5 million Americans quitting their jobs in November 2021 alone, up from 4.2 million in October and 4.4 million in October and 4.4 million in September.

The associate professor at University College London’s school of management gave four reasons for this seismic shift of activity, as explained in the Financial Times: “a backlog of pent-up resignations from the first uncertain year of the pandemic”, workers being “burnt out”, individuals having reflected “on how much meaning and contentment exists in their own lives” after being “confronted with death”, and “the unexpected freedom” that millions of workers had while working from home.

 

Following on from ‘The Great Resignation’, a rise in re-hires emerged, ‘the boomerang employee’, where their change in careers or jobs didn’t work out as expected. A Corporate Culture and Boomerang Employee undertaken by Workplace Trends, showed that 15% of employees have boomeranged back to a former employer.  40% of employees say they would consider boomeranging back to a company where they had previously worked (this includes 46% of Millennials, 33% of Gen Xers, and 29% of Baby Boomers).

 

Boomerang employees offer advantages for both employer and employee. For an employer, re-hiring former employees can reduce training costs and increase productivity by onboarding returning employees who already know the business. For an employee, many boomerangs will return feeling confident as they’re able to apply their newly acquired skills and experience in a familiar and comfortable setting.

 

“I joined BAE Systems in 2016, whilst I was on a placement year from Portsmouth University studying Computing. It was a mix of learning technical and programming skills, as well as software development. After the placement, I was offered a part time role during my final year, which I did 2.5 days a week. It was very nice as a student having a part time job like that! I enjoyed it, it kept me up to date and helped with moving into my role once I’d finished university.

 

Whilst on my placement and part time role, I was a Junior Solutions Developer. I enjoyed project management during this period and upon graduating, I started as a project professional. I was involved in scheduling, controls and assisting in projects. It wasn’t until I did my Project Management Qualification (PMQ), which is similar to PRINCE2 that I became an Assistant Project Manager. From then, I managed smaller projects and assisted on larger programmes. I did this until I became an Army Reservist and then deployed with the army. In February 2020, I was mobilised and went to Sierra Leone but because of the pandemic, it was cut short at the end of March. I then continued work with the army for 3 months, running Covid testing teams at sites across the South East of England. It wasn’t until 1st July that I returned to my former role until I was approached for a new opportunity.”

 

“Before I left with the army, there was an agreement that there would be a roadmap for me to progress from an Assistant Project Manager to a Project Manager. During the pandemic, management changed hands and previous agreements had dissolved, and I was contacted on LinkedIn by a competitor. When I put my notice in and had a chat with Darren Nice, Head of Digital Services about the new opportunity compared to my current situation. Darren said he didn’t want to lose me but encouraged me to take the opportunity. I could build up my experience for a few years and then if I wanted to come back in the future, I could return at a senior level.

 

I spent the next two years with the competitor as a Project Manager, managing air traffic control projects and specialising in business intelligence. They are a smaller organisation and were keen on my previous experience as BAE Systems Digital Intelligence is held in high regard amongst other companies because of what we do, the rigour and the processes. They wanted me to help define and improve their processes. In April 2022, I was contacted by Darren who I’d kept in touch with. He approached me about some exciting projects the business had coming up and asked if I’d consider returning to lend my expertise and support to ensure their success. I wasn’t finding the work I was doing with the competitor as interesting and was flattered to have been approached by Darren so decided to make the move and return.”

“My new role is Project Manager within the Digital Services part of Digital Intelligence. The role involves managing internally funded projects, supporting other business groups. And working on internal change pieces for existing systems that we run. Digital Services also generate our own intellectual property and package a ‘product’ In terms of what I’m enjoying about being back in the business, I was always really excited by the work – I enjoy working on intricate systems, software development and cyber security”

 

What would you say are the advantages of being a ‘boomerang’ employee?

“Firstly, integrating back into the department is easier. Whether it’s in a different area of the business, or working with former team mates or new people, you can still understand the landscape and culture better. Secondly, is understanding the processes, if you’re fortunate enough to go back into the same business area, navigating your way around is quicker. In project management, you can be more proficient, I already had familiarity with systems like SAP and Risk Predict. It gives you that head start, which could typically take around 3 months when you’re completely new.”

What would your advice be to someone interested in joining BAE Systems Digital Intelligence?

“Absolutely go for it. I feel that BAE Systems Digital Intelligence is at the tip of the spear of what we’re intending to do within the machine learning/AI and cyber security space. We’re also a leading competitor for technology. We’ve got some awesome opportunities, whatever interests you in the IT space. Here, you never know what’s next so it’s nice to cut through unchartered territories and realise what we can do to make things better and improve things.”

Discover more about working at BAE Systems Digital intelligence and take a look at our current roles we’re recruiting for