Originally from Brazil, Marcela acquired management and leadership skills working in Ireland as a Staff Manager for a renowned restaurant chain. She then decided to come to Portugal to continue her studies in Human Resources Management from which she has the skills to provide very important support to the Operations Team and the company’s Investment Advisors and Real Estate Teams.
A self-starter, organized and positive person is how we can best describe Marcela’s personality which are some of the best soft skills to have doing what she does at the Harland & Poston Group. She works well under pressure and gives her all to create a well-organized environment in the office, making sure life runs as smoothly as possible.
Being the heart of the office, Marcela’s good mood, wide smile and contagious laugh lift everyone up in the morning. Her natural sense of humour, allied to her people skills, create the perfect blend to foster our team bondings and establish a great working atmosphere for all teams, clients and partners.
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What decisions does an Operations employee have to make?
It's about making sure that everything that comes in terms of work, listings, contracts and partnerships is correct because sellers, investment advisors, telemarketing, everyone is connected to us. They all depend on us having a 100% correct job. They need us to have 100% correct information, signed contracts and all the challenges because our end client is the 350k Golden Visa investor, so that client needs to make sure they are buying something that will be 100% guaranteed for what they intend to apply in the future.
What are the toughest challenges you’ve had working at Portugal Homes?
The processes and the way we handle all the information is challenging as people always expect the company's Operational and Admin Department to say yes to every task, to every job they bring into Portugal Homes. This analysis of realizing what's right and what's wrong and what we have to do, what's going to move forward, what's not, is sometimes quite frustrating for the person who is working together with the people who want the results and want everything to work out. This is why we have to follow a procedural checklist so that we don't have any problems in the middle of the sales and buying processes.
What is the most meaningful part of your job?
I believe that when we take a picture of the client and when he leaves satisfied with our service. We are able to realize that the whole procedural part, all the operations part, including marketing, including After Sales, including the sales... they are all doing a 100% job. I think the biggest gratification in addition to seeing the client satisfied, is also seeing that all our people are working together towards the same goal.
Would you recommend people to work at Portugal Homes?
Certainly. I can say that we are not a company like others. We have a very diverse team, and we all work together. All the departments in our company are interconnected, starting with marketing, telemarketing, investment advisors, operations, to clients who come to us in search of what they want - the Golden Visa, which is buying a house in Portugal through making a real estate investment in Portugal. They can see that our company, in addition to being a diversified company, does not deal with processes in the same way as other companies do.
What we do is to give support to those who come to us, who want to acquire the experience, who want to buy houses, properties in Portugal bearing in mind that this diversification where you learn that everyone can do the same job but they are different people, so in your day-to-day, you have to learn how to live with people, and how to deal with them.
We have colleagues from France, we have Portuguese colleagues, we have English colleagues and each one has a different way of working. Their culture, the way they each handle their work means that it enriches everyone’s work as a team every day, and as a whole in general. And I 100% recommend Portugal Homes.
Do the varied cultures we have in Portugal Homes add value to you professionally?
Yes. One additional point I’d like to add for all the work that the Portugal Homes team has been doing when it comes to the pandemic we’re facing is that we had to work from home and we had to reinvent the way the process was handled. With our difficulties of not being able to be here, the communication not being so fast in terms of response to the process, I believe that we never actually stopped, sales never stopped happening, processes never stopped happening. We did perhaps have a delay in relation to answers we needed, but at the same time we managed to have a big score in terms of adaptability thanks to our diversity and ability to adjust.
We managed to keep Portugal Homes working at the level where everyone could access the process from their home, to have all the information updated without losing the connection, without losing the communication that I think is the soul of the company and is how Portugal Homes works - based on communication.
Curiosities and facts about Marcela:
- She has already lived in Brazil and Ireland before settling in Portugal.
- She brightens up the office every day with her smile and big “Bom dia” greeting.
- Her corporate and people skills are key to deal with our private vendors, developers, lawyers and partnerships.
- She loves a good southern Brazilian “Churrasco” (barbecue in English
- She is an expert in solving problems. For her, everything has a solution: “a gente resolve!”
- She is a big fan of the “Superman” movies and “The Witcher” series
About Employee Talks
Employee Talks is a part of Portugal Homes - Harland & Poston Group’s digital marketing strategy. Our employees and their backgrounds are the company’s greatest asset, hence our belief in sharing the employees’ thoughts on working at this company shows our ability to differentiate, cultivate and promote our identity to not only candidates interested in working here, but also clients who are purchasing with us. We want our viewers to understand why we stand out from the crowd and think it’s a great opportunity for you to get to know us better.
