In this #PeopleFirst interview we speak to Michelle Madden, Senior Estimating Co-ordinator at Kirby.

There is always that one person in an organisation; the one that everyone goes to when they need to know something. For Kirby, that person is Michelle Madden. She has been with us for 22 years and has trained up numerous people in her tenure.

Michelle says: “It’s the people who have kept me at Kirby. We have each other’s backs and importantly, we all get along. Everyone is helpful, the work is varied, and we work collaboratively to get the job done. Kirby recruits for the culture, and you can tell. Kirby wants people who live our values, and that makes it a nice place to work.”

Speaking to Michelle’s colleagues they say she is one of the reasons they enjoy coming to work. Louise Moran, Estimating Coordinator, was welcomed by Michelle when she joined Kirby in October last year, “Michelle was incredibly busy when I started, but still made time for me and made sure I was paired up with colleagues and was made to feel welcome. She introduced me to the whole team, before our manager took me round the whole Limerick office. I think everyone knew my face before I managed to get a cup of tea. There’s a real friendly feel to Kirby, and Michelle is definitely part of that. She always has a story to tell and knows everyone in the office. She a great person to go to for advice and trains everyone in our team.”

Michelle first applied for a receptionist role in our Limerick office, having trained in childcare and worked in a call centre, she is good with people, and when she went to interview, she was asked if she would be interested in a job in Estimating. “I haven’t looked back,” she says. “There is no such thing as a typical day,” Michelle is the first to receive the project packages. “It’s all digital now,” she adds. “Back in the day we would receive hard copies of the drawings in the post, we would count them by hand and make sure they were all there, then split up the packages and post out the documents and specifications for our suppliers to price. At the time it could take us up to a month to price even the smaller projects, but now as everything is digital, we can turn these around a lot faster.”

Michelle has seen Kirby grow first hand; the size and number of projects our team works on has grown steadily over her career. “We see a lot of repeat clients, with the packages growing in size and scale. It’s an exciting team to be in.”

Problem solving, working with other departments and suppliers, Michelle is constantly collaborating while using the latest technology to problem solve and offer the best proposal to our clients.

To find out more about careers at Kirby go to https://careers.kirbygroup.com/.