DHL manager Tanya Cotter encourages volunteering

DHL colleagues are at the heart of what the company does, and they excel in their daily roles to teach and live best practice.

Meet DHL Supply Chain Corporate Responsibility Manager, Tanya Cotter.

Tanya is always looking at ways to develop herself and make sure she is doing the best to support communities through the DHL UK Foundation.

Tanya has seen good career progression at DHL. In addition, she actively encourages colleagues to get involved with charities and communities.

Supporting DHL Supply Chain's communities to improve lives

Tanya works for DHL's internal communications and engagement team, as well as looking after the company's community programs.

"So, basically I am responsible for encouraging colleagues to get involved in our charitable and community programs through volunteering, fundraising or donating goods," explains Tanya.

Making a positive impact through charity work

Tanya started as a temp as a Junior Secretary for one of DHL's Business Unit Directors, and after six months, she was offered the role to become a permanent employee with DHL. Since then, Tanya became a PA and also had the opportunity to take up a variety of roles over the last 20 years, from talent management, Learning and Development, sustainability and project management.

"I've also had the opportunity to work with the DHL UK foundation for a couple of years before I started this role back in 2015.

"So over the last 20 years, I've seen all sorts of changes when it comes to the way colleagues get involved with supporting their local charities and communities, so for instance fundraising and sponsorship used to be a huge thing back in the day, whereas nowadays, we're open to getting involved in different ways, like donating goods or volunteering our time," Tanya comments.

"From a business perspective, because we're such a large organization, we're really focused on making sure that in the communities where we live and work we're having a lasting positive impact. Every day as a business we are making a positive impact to our local communities through one of our activities, and more and more you see colleagues getting involved and being really passionate about making a difference," explains Tanya.

Encouraging involvement in community programs

When thinking about different things that Tanya can do in her role to keep it fresh and interesting as well as creating new programs and activities for DHL's colleagues to get involved with, she explains that she needs to think about herself and how she can be better to support DHL's colleagues across the business.

"I was looking through the different opportunities we have through our apprenticeship scheme, and although there wasn't a degree apprenticeship available I'd looked around and there was a digital marketing one through Aston University," says Tanya.

"So I was able to pull a business case together speak to the apprenticeship talent team and also my line manager who were fully supportive."

"I'm really looking forward to learning more about digital marketing and how it can help me come up with more creative campaigns and encourage more colleagues to get involved in our community programs, and also from a wider team perspective it will really help our internal communications and engagement team," Tanya concludes.