EMG Solicitors operates offices in Durham, Newcastle, Darlington and Penrith, and provides a range of services including residential conveyancing, employment law and family mediation. Jemma Morland co-founded the firm in 2014, along with Emma Gaudern, and now lead's EMG's Court of Protection department.
What was your first job (and how much did it pay)? My first job was as a checkout operator for the supermarket, Somerfield Stores. I was 16 years-old at the time (a wee while ago) when I started working there and I was a student in school. I recall that I earned around £4 per hour (or whatever the National Minimum Wage was at the time). I actually met my husband whilst working there though, so I definitely bagged myself more than just a pay cheque!
What is the best advice or support you’ve been given in business? The best advice I could give to anyone working on or within a business is to be open to change. Change breeds opportunity. This is not something (as a former self-confessed control freak) that I always openly embraced, but with great leadership and coaching I started to recognise that by not embracing change I was simply staying in my comfort zone and potentially losing out on new and better opportunities, as well as more effective ways of working. In order to facilitate and breed change I have worked closely with my team to actively encourage new ideas; we operate open monthly agendas to our team meetings, we have implemented work improvement groups and we rotate our meeting leads to provide just a few examples. Approachability is key though, without people feeling they have a safe space and the support (from the top) to voice and trial new ideas, those ideas won’t be forthcoming. It is also amazing to see how much better people buy into any new process, whether it is their idea or not, if they feel included and there has been complete transparency.
