Sustainability Intern Review

I thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to experience the working dynamic within the Heathrow Airport head office. Experiencing the airport (not as a passenger) is really insightful as you can learn just what decisions need to be made to keep the complex, unique business running each day. As a result of the scale of the airport, there are a variety of roles under one roof and opportunities to get involved with both in and outside of your placement role. This is definitely the main highlight I would take away from my placement as I appreciated how different each day is and the enjoyment of this. Joining on an internship placement provided an element of flexibility within your role, meaning you had the opportunity to shadow different areas of business, which was strongly encouraged. This could be in the form on a couple of hours/a day and it provided the chance to learn a sense of different departmental roles across HAL and network across the business. I definitely made use of this and I am pleased to be able to say HAL supports this as when you are in a permanent role, time for shadowing is definitely more difficult to find. Hence, taking the opportunity as an intern is so valuable and worthwhile. Being part of the intern cohort provided a friendly atmosphere; a group to socialise with outside of the departmental colleagues. This definitely improved my experience as having youthful colleagues to settle in with, develop alongside, learn from and work alongside during the Intern Project meant a lot of shared experiences, such as tours of the airport, which in turn results in a lot of fun memories.

Within my placement, I felt more valued within the internship cohort and my place during the Intern Project, more than within Sustainability. I think this is a combination of trust given through the work I was set during my placement. My team appreciated my organisational ability, but I rarely had the opportunity to lead on a project and perhaps this was partly my own doing, but I never felt fully integrated. This could have been because my team is made up of specialist roles and being new I do not have this experience. The age of my fellow colleagues within Sustainability are also much older on average and perhaps if there was more of a mix I would have more to share and feel more integrated. Likewise, during the Intern Project I took on the role of Project Manager. This experience was so rewarding as this was a stretch in responsibility. However, the dynamic working alongside fellow interns was fun and exciting and I have so many positive experiences as a result. At Heathrow they do put a focus on well-being and are very supportive in that sense and so the value as a employee is strong.

My manager was new to the line managerial role, but was very supportive and easy to talk to. We did struggle to organise regular weekly 1:1's due to clashes in schedules, but in general I think I had a decent level of support. I appreciate that at Heathrow, the pace is fast and there is a strong meeting culture. This means grabbing time with a colleague is sometimes more challenging that you would expect and I had to adjust to this. I think as an improvement, my manager needs to put in more of a review structure. By noting down what points are made during our 1:1 discussions perhaps monthly reviews would help with encouragement around what steps to focus on/who to network with in the next month in order to be most proactive around personal development.

It varied a lot. Initially when settling in I was given time to find my feet and adjust to the fast paced atmosphere at Heathrow. When happy I requested more work from my team which did happen, but as projects end, the regular input of new work is not consistent when I was viewed as the intern. However, when the Intern project was assigned, I made this more of a focus and felt a nice balance between Sustainability-related work and the Intern project work. Likewise, when the project finished, workload dropped which seemed to be a common response across interns I spoke to. I was comfortable reporting this to my line manager, but where more free-time arose I made sure to utilise it as shadowing time so I was making the most of my week and being proactive to help understand what career I might like.

Had lots of responsibility within the intern project, but not so much during my Sustainability team placement. This may be a result of the dynamic of my placement team, with each colleague having their own agenda and not thinking this could be shared out to give the intern a wider perspective of project work within one team. I mainly assisted projects for the same colleague and my line manager and again, this was more of a support role involving organisation of events, research into topics for presentation material. I found this limiting and much preferred my role in the Intern Project due to the variety of scope that needed to be completed across the 7 of us. You weren't labelled to certain tasks, meaning you could learn more and bring a young-fresh perspective.

I entered the internship at Heathrow as a graduate and so I feel I had my interpersonal skills to bring with me. In terms of development, I have identified the corporate differences in day-to-day work compared with the university dynamic. It is very different, adjusting to the reliance on others to provide you with information in order to make progress on projects. Also adjusting to the governance/"red-tape" you have to work through in order to make change could be quite frustrating at times as I am very organised and like tasks to be done quickly... which isn't always as easy and feasible in the working world. I have developed on confidence and the corporate skills regarding meeting cultures/office software and materials.

The team dynamic where I was placed on my internship was not lively enough for my liking. With Sustainability as the focus I think the agenda is very serious and so workload is very focused and socialising is limited. I enjoy meeting new people and as I didn't experience much opportunity of this within my team I found ways to network across the business and be more active in the terminals which I enjoyed much more than being based at my desk. They do have a Mojo team which works on activities to increase morale and well being which did provide fun at times.

The internship involved monthly meet up sessions as a cohort and these were long 2-3 hour meetings which I felt were too long. I would have appreciated more of a monthly 1 hour catch up, but I understand these meetings were not just to socialise, they were to share concerns and hear from speakers across the business. This is tough to squeeze into an hour but perhaps the agenda could be varied up more frequently. My team had not had an intern previously and I think for the next student they need to put more time into structuring what upcoming tasks they can get involved in, in order to feel more inclusive of the team's workload. At times I felt very independent and it was up to me to organise shadowing which did make you feel more confident, tackling your own personal development which is valuable.

The opportunity for training is all off your own back as everybody has different needs. Hearing from others about what courses are worthwhile and interesting, I asked the respective teams if I could attend and that was how I dedicated time towards personal development. As part of the Intern cohort, the monthly meetings did provide CV support and sessions tailored to topics of our own choice such as Confidence. Aside from this, there is no structure around certain training courses you will have been booked onto during your year as there is an online portal making such choices all voluntary.

I really like the dynamic at Heathrow and the atmosphere of the business as a whole. This means I am very interested in trying to secure a permanent position, one that is outside of my placement team but satisfies a more proactive environment with a bit more atmosphere. The Heathrow values, its focus on employee well being, agile working and the unique variety of each day makes working at the airport brilliant. I view HAL as a great company.

Yes as a cohort we had a great dynamic and this meant there was always time put aside to meet up outside of work. I really appreciated this as a lot of colleagues do not have such an opportunity, at least not as regularly. The intern project definitely develops a bond amongst the team you are in as you are working together as a team and learning from each other. I have gained so much value from the project experience and hope to keep in touch with the interns post placement.

I live near to the airport and so did not have to move out. Therefore it is hard for me to comment on this, but I am aware that living near to the airport is costly and this causes a lot of colleagues to travel a long way to get to work each day. I am fortunate to be part of the local community.

Good links to London via the train and so socialising is commonly suggested in Paddington. However, in the local area there are lots of restaurants in nearby towns like Staines, Windsor but in the imminent boundaries of the airport, there are no clubs I am aware of and so nightlife is not close by.

So many opportunities to get involved with, both in and outside of your team. This ranged from tours organised across airport and also taking part in fundraising events and also Here to Help volunteering. The varied dynamic working alongside a live operation means that the opportunities are limitless and each day is so fun and different.