Internship at Panasonic in the UK

Transcription

1 Internship at Panasonic in the UK PREPARATION I applied for my internship at Panasonic in August last year. After two telephone interviews I got the position. In January I went to the UK, to Panasonic to get to know my new colleagues and to discuss my tasks and my expectations. I also received a tour through the building and got to know the different departments. That gave me a great first impression. And it was a good feeling to know the location of the building as well as to know some colleagues already. During my visit in January I was already able to discuss accommodation issues. Several Colleagues as well as other students gave me the advice not to move to Bracknell, because it is quite an industrial area and that there are other small towns close by. They told me that Reading, a university city about 1/2h car drive away, would be a good place to live. With all the information I got I went back home and was already looking very much forward to my time at Panasonic. ACCOMMODATION I started to look for flats in the beginning of march, so one month in advance of my internship. You can't really book a room or an apartment long time in advance. Panasonic sent me link of trustable and good letting agencies. ( and I checked both websides, prepared a list with my favorite flats in Reading and rang the agencies. I was very lucky, because my first call was already successful. I got my favorite apartment - a small, but modern room, with an en-suite new bathroom, a kitchen and a living room to share. I was a bit worried when Westgate (the letting Agency) asked me to transfer money (the first month rent as well as the deposit) to their bank account, although I had never seen the flat. But I had to trust them, because their was not really another opportunity. And finally everything worked out all right. When I arrived here I picked up my keys from Westgate and went to my lovely new little home. MY TIME AT PANASONIC Panasonic was founded in March 1918 by Konosuke Matsushita in Japan. Today Panasonic employs around people around the Globe. Panasonic is a well known brand for electronic devices, such as TVs (Viera), Broadcast Equipment and Cameras (Lumix). Overall Panasonic offers more than products. Panasonic is official Sponsor of the Olympic Games since 1988 and supports the Olympic movement through their outstanding technology.

2 In Europe Panasonic has around employees. Panasonic Europe consists of 4 headquarters, several manufacturing companies, sales and marketing companies, research and development operators and others. An important message which is lived at Panasonic is 'People before Products'. The employees are the most important resource of the company. I think this is a great company value. On my first day I got a very warm welcome from all my colleagues. I had free lunch on my first day and I was invited to join an induction presentation about Panasonic. In the induction I learned a lot about the history, the philosophy and values, as well as about the products and the Panasonic site here in Bracknell. From my first day on everyone tried to get me involved. I was allowed to watch what my colleagues were doing and the explained everything to me. I was able to ask questions at any time. During my first 6 weeks I got an insight into operative Human Resource work. I learned a lot about Recruitment, HR Systems and Processes and Employee Relations. Recruitment was my favorite area. Together with the Industrial Placement student for HR I was responsible to do the whole recruitment process for the Industrial Placement Students 2011/2012. We scanned CVs, invited the successful candidates for telephone interviews, discussed the performance in the telephone interview and invited around 4-8 candidates for an Assessment Centre. I planned the outline of the Assessment Centre days and helped the current Student to run the Assessment Centre (Supervising the candidates during testings). When we finally had recruited all the students for the next year, we prepared a welcome session for the new students. We invited them to come to Panasonic again for one day. First we did a small induction presentation, we did some team building activities and went bowling with the current and the new students as well as with their managers. After having a fun night out we made the new students do their house hunting. This event was a great success. I think everyone fells comfortable now, got to know the other students and the managers a little better and everyone found a place to live. Unluckily I will not be here anymore when they start in the beginning of July. Another interesting Project was the induction presentation. Some content and layout related amendments were necessary. So I talked to colleagues from different departments, to make sure that the content regarding their area is correct. That was really interesting, because it

3 gave me the chance to get in contact with other departments and to learn something about their daily work. After finishing the presentation I was allowed to deliver the next induction to new starters together with a colleague. That was great. I also learned how Panasonic deal with the administration process of new starters. I got the opportunity to the whole paperwork for 2 new starters. I had to send them a lot of documents in advance, which had to be filled out by them. On their first day I welcomed them, double checked their paperwork, took copies of important documents and made up their employee files. Apart from recruitment I learned a lot about Human Resource Systems and Processes. Pretty much every process, detail and information has to be entered in one of the several databases and systems. I for example entered new starters in a system which then automatically created their address and employee number. I also updates several database regularly. That had to be done, but was quite boring. I also dealt with chasing references. Every new starter has to name the last companies he worked for. I wrote letters to these companies and asked them to fill out certain questions about the employee. This process had to be entered into our Systems as well (reference request send out, date and reference received, date) Regarding the field of Employee relations I was involved in the preparation of the long service award. People who work for Panasonic 10, 15, 20 years get the long service award. During a little ceremony the Managing Director of Panasonic UK gives a speech, taking about the career of the employee within Panasonic. The content for this speech is prepared by the Human Resource Department. I was responsible to prepare 4 Long service Awards. I took the employee files and went through them, looking for the different positions people were in and special achievement they made. This was a very interesting task. it was amazing to see the development of some employees as well as the old documents, such as working contracts which were signed about 20 years ago. In my last 6 weeks I got to know strategic Human Resource work. This was completely different to the operative worki did before. I independently worked on several projects regarding social media and employer branding in the recruitment process. I did research on topics such as Linkedin company pages and Virtual Job Fairs. I prepared presentations on these topics and presented the to my manager. Together with a colleagues I took part in telephone-/ video conferences to discuss questions with the salespeople from LinkedIn for example.

4 I was also involved in the preparation of the Panasonic diversity month. I did brainstorming with my colleagues here in the UK as well as with colleagues from Germany via video conference. I worked on the preparation of different diversity activities and prepared our intranet pages with useful content regarding the diversity month. Unfortunately I will not be here any more when the Diversity month starts. But I am sure my colleagues will keep me updated. Another great project was the Recruitment Portal. it was my task to think of ideas how to make a recruitment portal more interesting and even more useful for applicants. I came up with various ideas, which my manager strongly supported. I will finish my activities with the recruitment portal by next thursday (the end of my internship) and then everything can go live. I really enjoyed this strategic work, because you do not just have to follow certain rules and action steps. You can be creative, invent new ideas and implement new structures. Overall I had an amazing time at Panasonic. I did not expect to get such a great inside to a company during such a short time and I did not expect either to get so much responsibility and projects to work on. I honestly never had a day when I was bored. I enjoyed to go to work every single day and I will miss all of my Panasonic colleagues and my work at Pana. All of my colleagues were so helpful, supportive and interested - it was amazing. On friday I organized a so called Pot-Luck-Lunch, where everyone had to bring a dish(starter, main or pudding) and we had our 1h lunch break in a large conference room with a massive buffet and the delicious food everyone prepared. It was great to have such a get together before I have to leave next thursday. DAILY LIFE AND FREE-TIME During the week, working 9-5 there is not a lot of spare time. After work I often went on the Golf course, played a few wholes or practiced in the practicing area. It was amazing to play on these amazing british Golf courses. They are in such a great condition. And all the players have such a sportive attitude towards this sport, which is often missing in Germany. I practices about 3-4 days a week, because I am playing for the team of my club at home and we have an important competition in mid July. Apart from Golf I did lots of other sports. With a friend/colleagues I went to the British Military Fitness. It is a fitness workout run by Army people in various Parks around the country. It was a great experience. Moreover I went for long runs in the different huge parks and recreation areas you can find all over city.

5 Panasonic has around 15 Industrial Placement Students every year. These are students from UK universities. They are studying a so called sandwich course (2 years university + 1 year Industrial Placement + Final year University). They work in all the different departments at Panasonic. I became good friend with most of them, we went to town together for shopping or a coffee, we went out for drinks at night or had great parties at their places (they lived in two 'Student house') Three weekends I had visitors from home. My parents as well as two friends came over. The cheap airlines (Ryanair - flying to Stansted and Easyjet- flying to Gatwick and Luton) are a great chance for everyone to come over for a visit. I also went to London several Times.The best bit was for the Royal Wedding for sure. I usually went by Bus. ( If you want to go anywhere in the UK by bus, always check out Megabus first. If you are lucky, you can get tickets for 1 Pound one way. Megabus takes you pretty much anywhere in Great Britain. You can even go to Scotland. I also went to Bath and Oxford. Two amazingly pretty little towns, absolutely worth visiting!! Apart from the fun activities I did my Toefl Test in Swindon. I needed this test for the application for my Masters. It is a great opportunity to take an English language test if you are over hear. The speaking and the listening part is so much easier if you are used to the language. TO SUM UP... I had three amazing months which were sometimes challenging but overall a great personal and professional experience. I learned a lot about Panasonic as a Company, about Human Resource Management and about the british culture and people. The aim of this internship, to figure out if Human Resource Management really is the field I want to focus on in my Masters can now for sure be answered with YES. I enjoyed the variety of the tasks in this department so much that I already applied for two Master courses in Human Resource Management in Germany. As soon as I am back home I will also apply for a students job in a company because I really enjoyed the practical work in a Company and the atmosphere to work with colleagues. If you have the chance to do an internship in a foreign country I would hardly recommend to

6 take this opportunity. Sometimes it seems easier just to stay at home and do an internship at a Company in your hometown. But being in another country, speaking another language, working with people from a totally different background and various mindsets is interesting and an important experience if you want to go for an international careers.