https://www.drivingforbetterbusiness.com/podcast/episode/women-in-transport/lorna-mcatear/ Useful Links National Grid https://www.nationalgrid.com/ Transcript DfBB Women in Transport Podcast Annie: Welcome to the Driving for Better Business podcast celebrating women working in transport, fleet management, and road safety. Delighted that with me today is Lorna McAtear, who is the Fleet Manager for National Grid. Lorna, a really warm welcome to the Driving for Better Business podcast. Now, whenever we hear the title ‘Fleet Manager’, it conjures up phrases like planning, managing, coordinating drivers, vehicles, procurement, utilisation, and then there’s maintenance and repair. A whole host of things. But, what does a normal week look like for you? Is there a ‘normal week’? Lorna: Great question – no, I don’t think there is a normal week. So, even if I just take today as an example, I’ve gone from company car orders, through to consultation papers, through to reporting for various things out there that we’ve signed up to, your EV100s and everything else… I’ve gone into what’s next on our Responsible Business Charter, through to strategic direction and planning for the next couple of years, and I’m reading through CVs, because I’ve got a current vacancy at the moment. So, there is no normal week, and it really does depend on when the phone rings, and what the query is on the other side of it. Annie: Excellent. Well, your knowledge around fleet management is phenomenal. And in particular, telematics. Where does the learning on telematics in particular come from? Was it on the job? Or was it somewhere special that you went to get that kind of knowledge? Lorna: So, I didn’t fall into fleet in your traditional way that a lot of people do. In fact, I’m not sure if there is a traditional way of falling into fleet, you kind of end up there, one way or another. I used to be an IT Project Manager, so actually all of my background and early career was data systems, coding… I didn’t quite program but I kind of got there. So a lot of my knowledge was already in that digital space. So I picked up telemetry projects. What I had to do was look at some carbon reduction stuff. I was kind of filling a gap in terms of projects I’d got, and they said ‘oh, we’ve given some money over here to fleet, go and see what they’re up to and how they’re spending it for us’. And it was telemetry and carbon reduction. So, I literally got involved that way around. And, because of my understanding of how computers work – for want of a better description – it made it so much easier. I was one of the first at that point in time that went with a one-box solution, instead of the two-box solutions that were out there at that point in time. And I remember going away to a session with my colleague that I kind of revered – they were up there on this pedestal – and we got to the end of this meeting and on data and language in vehicles and black boxes. And at the end of it, he asked me if I understood everything that was going on – and I went ‘yeah, everything, why?’. He went ‘I didn’t have a clue what they were talking about’. You suddenly realise that what you’ve got is a different skillset – and it’s just as valid. Even now, I get asked how I got into fleet, and how do you get there from IT. And it’s like… over half of a car is computing now. It’s actually a logical step when you think about it. Annie: Well absolutely. And that’s a really interesting point – so, at the moment, there’s some really focused discussions about electric vehicles, the pros and cons… and they’re also things that businesses need to consider when changing their fleet, and looking at electric vehicles and other systems that are on cars and vans nowadays. So what are your thoughts on how this change can be managed, with all this technology that’s around? Lorna: It’s an interesting one, because with that, I guess I’ve got that project management skillset that’s inherently there now – so you look at all of it very differently. You look at where the legislation is coming down. You look at what’s going to happen to you next. I guess I’m always in the ‘what’s next?’ space. So, with that, I’m always questions ‘what have I got today?’, ‘what do I need tomorrow?’, and ‘how do I get there?’. It’s putting that planning into it, and understanding what the barriers are that people are going to have to overcome, and how you move through each of those. Is it a transition, and you’ve got a handful of people that you need to deal with? Is it something you’ve got to do immediately, because actually your company is one of those that wants to promote this as a product themselves? So, you need to understand what each company does, what’s driving it forward. And therefore you can get in on that messaging. And once you understand that yourself, ...
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