I began my career as a Document Intern with H Connect in December 2012. By March 2013, I was working as a Mailroom Coordinator. Being an employee of a newly established Shared Services company, my goals were many. It seemed to be rather challenging at first, as this was my first job and I was in the first year of my degree. However, as time went by, things evolved.
With the introduction of Shared services to the group, where a great deal of investment was carried out, dedication and commitment were driving factors to ensure an effective and efficient process transfer.
By mid 2014, I was given the opportunity to work for the Accounts Payable (AP) team. It was a turning point in my career, coming from an IT background and taking on a new role in Finance. I welcomed the change as a new learning experience. A methodical and systematic knowledge transfer was carried out, with on-the-job training under the guidance of my supervisors in my new role.
The change in my job role helped me in making a personal decision to switch my degree specialization from IT to MIS in the year 2015. After having completed 6 months in the AP team, I was asked to follow up on the outstanding payments, there by taking the responsibility of the entire process, which was not an easy task.
I had to interact with multiple divisions within the group and external suppliers to resolve pending payment issues. This experience helped me to get a thorough understanding of other shared service processes, and the opportunity to connect with key business leaders and individuals within the company and outside, whist enhancing my business acumen.
Between the years 2016 and 2017, we were able to resolve a larger number of issues and streamline the payment process further, which was instrumental in improving our relationship with suppliers, while acquiring rebates and early discounts from them.
Throughout this period, I had the opportunity to be part of many learning and career development initiatives taken by the company.
I was in the final year of my degree when I was given a promotion from Executive to Senior Finance Executive. Balancing both work and studies, was a challenge but with the motivation from my colleagues, I believe, I managed it successfully. We, as a team, were able to ensure the consistency of payments and supplier relationships by developing a stable process to connect the clusters with H Connect.
2019 was an unforgettable year for me! I attended a neuro linguistic and leadership training program to develop my personal and technical skills. The benefit was immeasurable. During the same year I was given the opportunity to work on robotic process automation.
Having commenced my degree in IT, I had the hands-on experience of finance processes, which was a beautiful marriage of passion and knowledge. Now I am able to eliminate mundane, routine tasks performed by myself and my colleagues and, pass it on to the BOT, which allows us to work on more important tasks, making us more valuable to the organization.
Since the introduction of RPA I have been able to contribute my skills and knowledge for many projects in the form of data analysis and report generation. This definitely was a significant milestone in my career.
My journey with H Connect has been nothing short of a rollercoaster ride filled with both achievements, opportunities and challenges. The experience I gained during the past seven years at H Connect, has made me who I am today.
Whilst taking pride in working for a company that is accredited to be a Great Place to Work in Sri Lanka, I thank the management for all the opportunities given to me at H Connect.
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