In the 9 years I’m with Avanade I had the opportunity to perform various roles before stepping into my current one. I’m a big fan of job rotation as it will allow you to keep developing, and to stay motivated and sharp. At this moment I am responsible for the financials of Avanade Netherlands and I have an additional role as the finance operations lead for Gallia. This dimension gives the experience of working at an international environment with no boundaries.

To me, what makes Avanade a cool company is that you are in the driver seat of your career.

Writing this blog is a good moment to do a reflection on a hectic period, both business wise and personal.

Looking back at the past months

The past period was like a rollercoaster. I have mixed feelings about March when I think back. It was the month with the best performance in history for Netherlands, on the other side it was the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, which introduced many limitations.

When the COVID-19 impact started in March, the main concern was the well-being of our people and our clients. We could feel from the various review calls that work was 2nd place, and the calls were used to discuss multiple COVID-19 related worries like health, and challenges related to working from home and caring for- or being separated from family.

Working from home

Although the reason we are working from home is sad, I like to look at the positive sides. It gives me the opportunity to spend more time with my loved ones. My little daughter of 17 months is in a phase of exploring and learning a lot and to experience these moments is priceless. Sometimes it can be demanding, especially during (video) calls, but I happily take those challenges as I’m getting a lot in return.

Secondly, I like my do-it-yourself projects and there were quite a few projects in progress before the lockdown started. This time I didn’t have an excuse like working late or having work dinners, and I was able to spend time on completing the in-flight projects. I guess I was in time to avoid being surprised by the tv program “Help, mijn man is een klusser”.

One of the great benefits of working at Avanade is that I’m able to work from home and plan my work flexibly to allow for a healthy work-life balance. As homeworking was already embedded in the organization, the COVID-19 crisis didn’t interfere much with the daily operations. I’m thankful that Avanade is providing this opportunity and has trust in us and in return we can continue to deliver our best for Avanade.

Avanade has a strong family culture where everyone is having chitchats and is willing to help each other. Although working from home because of COVID made it bit harder to meet each other in person, Avanade managed to keep the connected feeling by organizing Get Togethers, Pubquiz (I didn’t win ☹), and Virtual coffees.