Manager’s career journey inspires employee-centered training in new Mechelen kit production facility

Lucy worked in a variety of roles across multiple departments before carving out her own niche in people management at our new kit production facility in Mechelen, Belgium.

She started her nine-year Covance by Labcorp career in a contractor role recording samples in our sample management department. With managerial support every step of the way, she’s progressed her career through roles in site support, project management, logistics and now kit production where she’s able to continue gaining new experience while also focusing on what she’s most passionate about: managing people and developing robust processes.

“I truly believe that the satisfaction in your day-to-day work will be better if you know why you’re here from the beginning,” Lucy said, “and that’s part of what I ensure at Mechelen today.”

Lucy said as each of her managers helped her find new ways to grow and contribute, she better understood the importance of the role she played as she progressed in the company. When she was scanning samples, she took some time away from work to grow her family; when she returned, she took on added responsibilities by pitching in with her problem-solving capabilities.

She said those additional responsibilities, which entailed working with project management and ensuring that paperwork was aligned and accurate, helped her to identify her passions and abilities. The confidence she gained in taking control of her career led her to apply for a role in site support less than two years after obtaining a permanent role in the company. Moving into the role of site support associate, a liaison role, Lucy was part of a team of ten individuals who called and emailed sites, addressed data challenges and resolved queries.

“Even though I was only eight months into that role when our team’s manager left, I didn’t hesitate to apply for the supervisor role as I was already naturally assuming a lot of leadership tasks in the team,” she said.

Lucy was promoted to the supervisor role, her first official opportunity to manage a team of people. While her direct reports were local, this new role also had her coordinating and collaborating with similar teams across the globe.

She then moved into another managerial role overseeing study maintenance in the project management department. In this role, she was responsible for guiding a global team of 200 people with various reporting structures; Lucy’s role was to specifically oversee the operations in Europe.

“I’m absolutely allergic to doing things inefficiently,” she said. “Also, I think it’s a logical thing as a mom – you just have to get things done efficiently.”

This role, where she was leading a very large team of people that directly reported to someone else, was heavily focused on change management – especially at the Mechelen, Belgium, and Bangalore, India, sites.

“I deal very easily with change, and I approach it from a very positive aspect. It’s important that we think about how we can benefit from change,” she said.

At this point in her career, Lucy had process improvement and people management experience but not as much client interaction experience – and that led her to take a large leap to lead a team in study management. This team had 80 individuals across the globe, and her new role carried a lot of client-facing and escalation responsibilities.

After some time leading the study management team, Lucy took an opportunity to move into the logistics team, bringing her to this current role supervising kit distribution across Europe, where she could again have face-to-face interaction leading and growing a team while helping to develop a new area of business in Mechelen.

“I’m very passionate about it – focusing on people and their development. That’s something that I value very much. Everyone gets very clear training and has an understanding of the impact of their role,” she said.