Evaluate of your own development as a result of your work placement.
by
ellouise1997hotmailcom (student)
I have completed a six week summer internship at BP. Prior to the internship I didn’t have any experience on how a business operates and what skills and behaviours are required in the workplace.
Over the six weeks I learnt how BP operate on a day to day basis. Firstly, I went to an induction. During the induction, I was taught all health and safety policies. For instance holding the hand rail and having lids on all drinks. And I was also given details about BP, what they do and what they offer their employees. Lastly, they talked about what happens in emergencies such as fires or if somebody needs medical help. Then during the induction, I met all my team and found that BP all have designated bases and I would be working in the same place surrounded by my team members throughout the six weeks. Experiencing an induction at BP was beneficial as I now have an understanding on procedures and policies which usually are similar between different companies.
Furthermore, I learnt about administration. Administration is the process of organising people and resources efficiently. Tasks they did included receiving phone calls, attended to guests, completing paper work and booking meeting rooms.
I also learnt how to set up meetings. Meetings are usually arranged on Outlook and Lync and they provide a notification when a meeting is booked and when it is coming up. When arranging meetings there needs to be information like the date and venue of the meeting, a link to join the online Lync meeting and the agenda of what the meeting is about. The majority of meetings at companies are used on outlook and therefore the knowledge I learnt at BP can be applied elsewhere.
BP also do a lot for young people. They provide work experience, internships and have a graduate programme. I know that BP offer a graduate program in which I may be interested whilst at university.
Moreover, the majority of the employees at BP have full time jobs. However, there will be people who have part time jobs where they have set days. And there will be people who work for BP temporally because they may be filling in for somebody who is absent or may be there to finish a specific project. My manager and team members also worked from home which was important to know if I needed to contact someone. BP was a very flexible company and as long as you do your work you can work when you want.
Furthermore, Health and safety is very important to BP and they make sure every employee knows the set of health and safety rules. These include hold the hand rail when going up and down the stairs and to never use your phone whilst on the stairs; also ensure that all drinks hot or cold, have lids on them to ensure they don’t spill over which could ruin paperwork or electrical items. They also have tests of the fire alarms and public address system every week which ensure that if there are any problems that they are in order so that everyone is safe. I made sure I followed by these rules and by following them I have adapted them to my everyday living.
Whilst at BP I worked very closely within my team. I worked with the GWO team which was spread amongst many countries. Over the weeks I presented to them, asked questions and completed jobs for them. The team working skill is very important amongst every job and therefore the skills I got here can be used in the future.
When I arrived at BP I was aware of all responsibilities of employment. I received a job description which will told me my job roles and I was told who I needed to report to if I ...
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Whilst at BP I worked very closely within my team. I worked with the GWO team which was spread amongst many countries. Over the weeks I presented to them, asked questions and completed jobs for them. The team working skill is very important amongst every job and therefore the skills I got here can be used in the future.
When I arrived at BP I was aware of all responsibilities of employment. I received a job description which will told me my job roles and I was told who I needed to report to if I needed any help.
Lastly, I learnt a lot about information in the workplace. I learnt how information was recorded, reported, saved, shared and how it was kept secure. Recording information, storing and reporting information is usually done on SharePoint; this is a website where documents can be stored. I then may share this information because they want other opinions or because it may help them. This may also be shared on SharePoint or email, Lync calls or teleconferencing. All the information I dealt with was very confidential so I learnt how to keep the information secure. I did this by having passwords and made sure I turned computer screens off when not in use and locked the screen, I made sure I didn’t leave print outs lying around and they will also sign a confidentiality contract. The steps I learnt to keep information safe has now been applied to my school work and will be useful in the future to ensure the safety of information.
During my internship I was able to gain many skills and behaviours that are required in the workplace. Firstly, I learnt the dress code. Everyone at BP must be in business casual apart from Fridays as it is dress down Friday where you can wear casual clothes. I stuck to the dress policy and wore business like dresses every day. Looking professional helped contribute to the effectiveness in the workplace because it will affected the way people treated me. If I look professional, people will treated me in a professional way which can consequently lead to better work.
It’s also important to be punctual every day. The set working hours are 9am to 5pm every day. However these hours are flexible; many departments have flex Friday which is a day off if you work an hour extra every day. Some employees may come in later than 9 and leave later or come early and leave early. I worked from 8am to 5pm every day. However, some days I stayed 15 minutes to an hour extra if I had work I wanted to finish or had a meeting. Being punctual showed that I wanted to do well in the job.
In addition, to being punctual it’s important to be reliable. To be reliable all employees must do their work accurately, free of errors and well presented. This means that the business can make sure 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.
I also developed my team working skills. This skill is vital in a business in order to achieve common goals within their department. Employees will ask each other questions, present in meetings and share ideas in order to work towards objectives. I worked alongside my team but contributing ideas, asking questions and completing tasks they wanted doing. Working alongside a team helped me work more effectively as they contributed ideas in which improved my work. Likewise, I can contribute ideas to them. Working as a team encourages communication which can help you get along well with them which makes work a more enjoyable pleasant time.
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. Communication is very important in order to complete the job. You need to communicate with team members in order to complete the job. Communication improved my personal contribution as I shared Ideas via Lync and meetings and my team shared there’s which led to improved quality of work. The verbal and electronic ways of communicating will be very beneficial in future work as they are used widely within business.
Similarly, interpersonal skills are needed in order to make the work place a nice environment to work in and is a skill that I further developed. 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 past I became more comfortable with them to have conversations and joke with them; I also went for lunch with them in order to get along better with them. Having good interpersonal skills is very beneficial. If you can get along well with your colleges then it makes the time at work a pleasant experience but also it means they are likely to help you if you needed it which improve personal contribution.
I also learnt business etiquette. Everyone at BP must behave, speak and dress in a professional manor. When I was there I spoke to my team members with respect, I didn’t use my phone for personal use and I dress appropriately to act professionally. Business etiquette will allow colleges to respect you and treat you professionally. Being respected by colleges will enhance time spent at work as if you act unprofessional people won’t treat you well and time at work will be unpleasant. I took on business etiquette like not using my phone during work and it improved my personal contribution as u wasn’t getting distracted and I could focus on the work.
BP have many different people working in their offices and therefore there needs to be respect for diversity. There will be young, old, 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 because I was the youngest there. I also spoke to different people with different races and ethnicities and I respected them also by speaking to them like I would any other person. Having respect for diversity will make the work environment pleasant to work in and ensure there is no conflict. If everyone is happy they can get on with the work they need to.
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 my team. Asking question improved my personal contribution as asking questions if I didn’t understand something and then consequently allowed me to complete good quality work.
Moreover, I improved my confidence. BP will help employees improve their confidence by encouraging them to share ideas and present 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. Having confidence helped me when delivering presentations and helps when asking question which is very beneficial. Being confident also helped with my personal contribution I had more self-belief in the work that I was contributing.
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 was told and think of it as improvements to become more successful. Feedback can help you improve in the future. For example, getting feedback on an interview can help you be better in interviews in the future. And getting feedback on work can only improve the work to make it a better. If I reacted negatively to feedback then they may not give me any in the future and my work might be a poor standard.
Over the six weeks I learnt what I enjoyed and what I didn’t enjoy about working at BP. I didn’t enjoy the repetitiveness of making spreadsheets as it was very boring and at times felt that because I became very good at it I wasn’t learning anything new. Also at times I didn’t enjoy being in meetings a lot of the time I didn’t understand what they were talking about as I hadn’t been there all the time and I had little knowledge on everything that was happening in my team. And I also didn’t enjoy the long hours as it is very different to school hours and I became extremely tired and unmotivated at times.
However there was a lot I did enjoy. I enjoyed working with different people around the world. I worked with people from Alaska, Houston, Trinidad, Africa and Norway. This isn’t something someone my age would be able to do normally so it was a great opportunity to see how different people run things despite being in the same company and team. I also enjoyed learning and developing skills and experiencing new things. I learnt a lot on excel and learnt how to use SharePoint, outlook and Lync which I know will be beneficial to me in the future. Lastly, I enjoyed feeling part of a team and being able to contribute to the team. It was nice to know my work was valued and became very useful to the team.
I contributed a lot to my team whilst at BP. My main contribution was on the regional simplification project where I continuously worked on Excel to find documents that needed to be decommissioned, elevated or needed to stay in the place they were. During this project I contributed in meetings and presented during them. Once I finished this project I worked with other team members on certain jobs for them, for instance, looking for broken links on the GWO portal and filling out Meta data for the team in Africa.
I am most proud of the presentations I did. I presented to people all around the world which was quite scary but I did it and got great feedback which was a great achievement and it really helped me with the little confidence I had. I am also proud of the amount of work I managed to do. My manager and other team members were extremely impressed with the work I produced as I worked efficiently.
Before the internship I wanted to be a web developer and I wanted to study computing at university. After the internship I realised what I like about IT is the general use of programs like Microsoft in which every business uses. My team also talked to me and gave me advice on different career paths in which may be suitable for me. I now want to study business management at university because I do enjoy business and it will lead me to work for a successful company.
In conclusion, the internship was a great experience where I understood what skills and behaviour are needed in the work place. Now I will be able to apply the skills and knowledge to future jobs and will help me be more successful. However, I still need to have a better understand and practice on some things. Although I improved my confidence a lot I still need to work on it in order to reach my full potential. I also could have a better understanding on the different roles in BP. I worked in GWO and didn’t experience any other job roles and therefore my understanding is limited.