Demonstrate employment skills and behaviors acquired during my work placement.

All staff must be reliable at the work place. To be reliable all employees must do their work accurately, free of errors and be well presented. This means that the business can make use of this information. I made sure I demonstrated reliability by double checking my work and asking for feedback from my manager. Once I had feedback I made sure to make amendments or correct any errors so that once I handed it in, it would be of use to the team.

BP is a large successful company and has lots of information. It’s important that information is not shown to third parties. Therefore, all staff must sign an agreement and contract on confidentiality and will be told a set of instructions to ensure that information is not passed on to unwanted people. For example, they may be told not to leave computers on and don’t leave paper unattended. When I was at BP I made sure to turn off and lock my computer when I left it unattended, kept all information to myself and didn’t share it with family and friends and also had to sign a confidentiality contract when I first joined.

Teamwork is vital in a business in order to achieve common goals within their departments. Employees will ask each other questions, present in meetings and share ideas in order to work towards objectives. I worked alongside my team by contributing ideas, asking questions and completing tasks and then passing the work onto them.

Communication is used widely amongst BP in different ways. Generally, people will talk face to face if the member they want to talk to is in their department. However, BP is a global business and has employees all over the world that you cannot talk face to face with. Therefore, a lot of people will use email, Lync, meetings and phone calls to communicate with other team members. I used emails and Lync regularly to communicate with team members in different countries. I also communicated with my team face to face and in meetings.

Similarly, interpersonal skills are needed in order to make the work place a nice environment to work in. Everyone at BP is friendly and everyone gets along well with each other. At the start of my internship I found it hard to interact with my team as they were new people that I didn’t know much about. But as the weeks continued I became more comfortable with them to have conversations and to joke with them; I also went for lunch with them in order to get along better with them.

I also learnt business etiquette. Everyone at BP must behave, speak and dress in a professional manner. When I was there I spoke to my team members with respect. I didn’t use my phone for personal use, I dressed appropriately to act professionally and when I met new people I shook their hand.

BP have many different people working in their offices and therefore there needs to be respect for diversity. Staff were young, old, from different races, ethnicities and genders at BP and they all needed to be respected. My team members were all a lot older than me so I had to treat them with respect as they did for me because I was the youngest there. I also spoke to different people from different races and ethnicities and I respected them also by speaking to them like I would any other person.

Additionally, whilst I was at BP I asked lots of questions and it’s important everyone in the company does this too. Staff need to ask questions in order to complete jobs. They may ask other team members, buddies or their manager. Whilst I was there I asked my manager and team questions if I didn’t understand something, or I was having an issue with something. And I also asked them if they had any more work for me to do as if I didn’t I would have been doing nothing and that would have not been helpful to me or my team.

Moreover, I improved my confidence. BP will help employees improve their confidence by encouraging them to share ideas, presentations especially for new and inexperienced staff. For new and inexperienced staff they may be put with a team member who is more experienced, this therefore allows you to gain experience and confidence. Whilst I was there I did presentation and had to speak to many different people which helped me improve my confidence.

Lastly, it’s important all staff learn to deal positively to feedback. Staff have their jobs that they will complete and with then receive feedback. It’s important that staff react to this positively and not take offense as it will only improve their work. When I was given feedback I would do what i was told and think of it as improvements to become more successful.

In conclusion, I acquired and developed many employability skills and behaviours that are required in the work place which is something that will be put to use in any new job in the future.