Vodcast

EP 02. Balancing safety and studies

Meha Patel: Hi, everyone. Welcome back to the Future Makers podcast. I’m your host, Meha, and today we have a very special guest from Cessnock City Council. Please join me in giving a warm welcome to Trinity Smith. Trinity, would you like to give us a quick introduction?

 

Trinity Smith: Hi, everyone. Yeah, like Meha has said, I’m from Cessnock City Council. I previously was our people and culture undergraduate, and I’m currently in our safety and risk project’s role, and I’ve been with Council for a bit over 2 1/2 years now.

 

Meha Patel: That’s great. So, because you’ve been in Council for 2 1/2 years, could you kind of share your journey in terms of what was your educational and career background, and then what led you to this role?

 

Trinity Smith: Yeah. So, I graduated from high school in 2021, so I was in one of those COVID years. Great experience having my HSC in that year, and I started uni in 2022. I never worked or anything while at school, and decided I wanted to go into business and didn’t really know what I wanted to major in. So, I started my Bachelor of business in Newcastle in 2022.

From there, I started doing some of those core modules and realised HR was a real passion of mine. As I just continued my journey in university, I was starting to look at other jobs. I was just working casually at KFC at the time. So, I started working there, sort of coinciding with uni, and then saw on SEEK that they were advertising their people and culture undergraduate role here at Cessnock.

I didn’t really think I would get the role. I just thought it would be a good sort of way to marry up with what I’m doing at uni. When I applied, I got the interview and then the role, which I was very surprised about, but very happy.

I live in our local LGA, so it’s not a far commute for me for work. I just never really thought I would be in a position now, working for local government. I never thought that at school, and it’s just been a really great journey so far.

 

Meha Patel: Yes, just to clarify, what was your initial role that you got into?

 

Trinity Smith: So, it was a people and culture undergraduate, which was my initial role. It basically consisted of two days a week of on-the-job training, as well as being able to attend university. I had study leave for any exams or classes that would follow my working days, but I pretty much then progressed through our people and culture and safety space. So, that’s sort of where my learning started for the first two years.
In January of this year, now that I’ve only got 2 subjects left at university, they asked me to go full time to lead a project, so that’s where I started from.

 

Meha Patel: That’s a really good career journey for us to hear about. Can you sort of briefly explain what your role entails now and what your main responsibilities are?

 

Trinity Smith: Yeah. So, my role now is safety and risk officer (special projects). At Council, we have online safety systems that we need to maintain and keep, and as of last year, we were told that the people who are providing our safety system aren’t giving that to us anymore.

So, pretty much, I got asked if I wanted to work on this project full time. It is full time, so I’m doing university in the afternoon now, but it’s sort of covering off everything that I’ve learnt the last two years in a very short amount of time, which is really cool.
It’s a project where I’m working with different online systems and working with different people. I’m building things online now, and it’s a really cool learning experience to be able to have a project for myself that I am leading, which is not something I really thought I would get when I started here at the role. I didn’t think I would ever be leading a project that’s going to affect everyone in councils.

 

Meha Patel: That’s really good to hear. And within that, what does a typical day in a life look like for you?

 

Trinity Smith: So, I guess I’ll start with my Mondays and Tuesdays, because they’re also my uni days. So, I will start here between 7:30 and 8:00 am at council. I’ll come in, and the last few weeks we’ve been going out to all of our different work sites within the LGA and delivering some training and some information packages on our new safety system. Also, obviously, in the office and doing a lot of admin-related work, relating to the project, which is still really valuable learning.

In terms of the technical aspect, on a Monday, I typically will leave the office at 3:30 pm and drive straight down to Newcastle to attend my uni course there at the university. On a Tuesday, I’ll leave at 2:30 pm and go down to university, and I just work a bit of longer hours on the other three days to combat that.

Here, my team has been really good with if I need to leave a little bit early for uni. If I need the whole day to study, I do have an accrual that I can take for any of my studies, so they’ve been really good with that flexibility.

 

Meha Patel: How has that been like balancing uni with work? What’s that like?

 

Trinity Smith: It’s definitely been tricky, but I also think it’s been really valuable. Through my undergraduate program, I was only working two days a week. Obviously, I also had another job at KFC, working casually there for a bit of extra money. I don’t think I would have gotten as much out of my university experience without mirroring the program I’m on here at Council. Definitely, some days it can be a lot with working full time and uni. I think my team has been really supportive, which is really good.

 

Meha Patel: Oh, that’s good to hear. And what would you find more rewarding or enjoyable about your role?

 

Trinity Smith: I think for me, what I really love is making connections with people. I’ve always been a people person, and in an organisation where you have so many different avenues and so many different people you’re meeting on a daily basis, it’s really awesome to make a connection with someone and feel like you’ve impacted someone in a positive way.

I’m trained in mental health first aid here at council, so I’m one of our well-being officers as well. So, if anyone ever has an issue or they’re in a crisis of any sort, I’m one of the nominated people they can speak to about anything, and it’s been really valuable being a part of some of those well-being initiatives with the team.

I think it’s just really getting out and about, seeing different parts of the LGA I never would have. Getting to see our construction teams doing their reconstructions and seeing them do some really awesome work. I think seeing a bit of everything, talking to everyone, and feeling like making a difference is really cool.

 

Meha Patel: You mention making a difference. Is there a specific project or initiative that you’ve been involved on that you’ve been really proud of working on?

 

Trinity Smith: My team recently started a few really awesome well-being initiatives. In March, we did the Hunter well-being challenge, which was all Hunter councils. We participated in improving our well-being on a day-to-day basis based off a point system. Our Council actually won, and it was our first win. It was our first time ever doing that, and I was really heavily involved in getting that out to all of our teams. Obviously, winning is great, but the teams and a lot of the organisation brought such positive feedback back to us and said they can’t wait to do this next year. Some of the tools that we’ve offered our staff have been really valuable.

 

Meha Patel: Oh, that’s really inspiring to hear. I think earlier you mentioned that because you were doing uni and work at the same time, your council was really supportive about that. How further would you describe the workplace culture at Cessnock City Council?

 

Trinity Smith: It is a very positive culture. I think for someone like me, who is really in their first ever professional role, my first few weeks here, I was absolutely nervous. I was so scared of everyone. I didn’t really talk to anybody. I sort of stayed in my shell because I started here when I was 18 and was very much not a social butterfly.

Everyone in my team has really shown me the ropes. They’ve all got me to come out of my shell, and now they all say I just talk everyone’s ear off now in our department.

Yeah, I think everyone’s been really supportive. They all know my journey, and I guess it’s been really good to have a manager that wants me to strive and be my best. She has also been trying to get me to explore every single avenue I can see at council, to figure out what I want to do in my future career, which has been really, really awesome.

 

Meha Patel: It’s a really nice environment to be in. I think the other thing that I would want to ask you is, because you’ve had two roles where you’ve progressed, what sort of advice would you give, both for just starting out and then advice you would give now, being in a full-time role?

 

Trinity Smith: I think advice for starting out is ask as many questions as you can. When I first started, I definitely was afraid to ask questions because I felt like it made me look silly. Everyone would tell me, “Ask questions.” I’d then do something wrong, and someone would come and talk to me and say, “Hey, you didn’t actually do this right, in the process that we would have liked you to.” I would then be like; I could have stopped this if I had asked that question at the start.

For anyone who is looking to go into a role mirroring a uni degree, like an undergraduate or a cadetship, make the most of it. Really try to get all of the learnings that you can out. I think definitely councils have a lot to offer in variety, especially which you won’t get at many other workplaces.

I guess if you can learn different avenues, maybe you’ll get into a role and decide this is not for me at all, but I see this over in a different department at council and I really like that. Start to get those feelers out and really understand what you want to do as a person, I think it is really important as well.

My advice now is pretty much the same. I think if you are considering going into a role mirroring your degree, council is such a good place to start for sure.
I never thought I would be here now, full time, in a project leading a project with a team of really awesome women. I never thought I would ever be in this position, really enjoying my work. So, I guess just bite the bullet, take it on. If you decide council is somewhere you want to work, I think it’s a really good step. If it doesn’t work out, that’s OK as well. There’s obviously a lot of other avenues, but yeah, if you’re considering a role, definitely I think apply.

 

Meha Patel: I think that’s completely solid advice and I completely agree, as a graduate, keep asking those questions. And I think that, you know, helps you grow in your field.

I think the last question is, what sort of impact do you think young leaders can make within local government?

 

Trinity Smith: I think a lot of local government, especially young people coming through into the organisation, definitely brings a lot more creativity into the organisation. Young people now have very different views than people who’ve been at an organisation for 20 to 30 years. I think here at our Council, we see it a lot.

We have a really, really strong apprentice, graduate, and undergraduate programs, and some of those apprentices and trainees are now in team leader positions where they’re making a real positive impact. Only after being here for four to five years, I think it’s learning not being afraid to ask those questions, challenging any assumptions, or challenging things that you may think could be done in a better way, and then improving processes. I definitely think young leaders do have a very important role to play, and I think that diversity in a workforce is really important to keep local government striving and growing. At the end of the day, new young people will be bringing in new ideas from their studies, their lifestyle, and I think everyone brings something unique.

 

Meha Patel: No, I’m glad that you mentioned that, and I completely agree. I think young people can help challenge those assumptions and bring more creative and new ideas into the workplace, which I think is quite important.

Well, I guess that’s a wrap for today’s episode, Trinity. Thank you so much for sharing your journey and insights. Honestly, it’s been great having you on here.

If you’ve enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to share it with anyone who might find it inspiring. We’ll also be back soon with more stories from young professionals shaping the future of local government.

So once again, thank you so much, Trinity.

 

Trinity Smith: Thank you.