Reece has been at Hive Communications for five and a half years honing his technical expertise, learning every part of the business and growing alongside Hive.
Reece began at Hive as an Infrastructure Technician Apprentice. He graduated his apprenticeship with a Distinction and was awarded the Top Apprenticeship Award in his sector from Wiltshire College! Reece continued to shine at Hive and was promoted to Senior IT Support Technician in 2021. He was then promoted further to Head of Service Delivery before his recent appointment as Head of Operations. He has shown unwavering dedication to the business and our valued customers.
We sat down with Reece to hear his perspective on his career with Hive so far and to hear more about the business at this exciting time!
Reece, you have had an incredible career so far! What attracted you to work in this space?
“I have always been into tech and fixing it from such a young age, I was always tinkering with the family computer or other electronics, always trying to add new features or learn new things. It was most likely my curiosity that kept pushing me onto the next thing to try and understand.
I knew from my years in secondary school I definitely wanted to work in tech but was not sure where I wanted to settle. A year or so after finishing college, my barber at the time happened to also cut the hair of the founder; Christoph. One conversation led to an interview, and here I am today.”
What do you enjoy most about your role?
“I would get in trouble if I didn’t say it was the team, but I must say the customers do add to my enjoyment of the role. I always thought that IT would be seen as these mindless technicians who don’t enjoy a conversation, but our customers love a friendly and often funny chat while we fix the issues on remote sessions.
Second to that it’s always fun to get out the office and go to see prospective customers, as well as meet our current customers for catch ups.”
How has the industry changed over the last few years?
“Cyber security! It now plays an important role in day-to-day life with the increasingly dangerous and devious threats that are out there on the internet. Thousands of businesses, before they meet Hive, often do not have antivirus, data encryption, cloud data backups, or two-factor authentication for their sensitive accounts!
Password cracking has become a whole lot easier in recent years, and all too often we see new customers we onboard, using the same password used to access their emails and their banking.
With all these new potential threats, we have adapted by providing solutions and partnering with trusted software vendors to provide a robust selection of services to ensure we can protect any business in any sector.”
What challenges do you see your customers facing and how can you help?
“It’s hard to say, every customer is different, has different needs and requirements day to day.
That’s why we offer bespoke solutions to our customers, rather than off the shelf packages that can see companies paying large amounts and for services they don’t really need! We work closely with customers to understand their business and when they are adhering to our security policies, training and online safety recommendations, then they will be safer in their day to day.
There will always be new threats and challenges that we will be ahead of the curve for, and we will maintain our stance in preventing issues, and protecting our customers so they can work effectively and securely.”
What sets Hive Communications apart?
“We aren’t a faceless service provider who take your money and provide the bare minimum at high costs. We want to meet our customers, do interactive video sessions, provide regular weekly and monthly reporting on the health of your systems and services.
We review your platforms and hardware, and recommend when action needs to be taken to improve your services, or to ensure you are ready for technical milestones. E.g. you have compatible and secure computers that are eligible to run Windows 11, before Windows 10 becomes end of life and support, making it a vulnerability for your business.”
Lastly, what are your hopes for the future?
“It has been an amazing journey so far and is more than a privilege to be in this role at my age (26), I hope to grow the company and my experience along with it.
Expanding our services and skillset so we can provide new services as and when they are released, ensuring our customers receive the best possible service, and that we are the only phone number our customers need when it comes to their technical needs.”