Operations & Planning Assistant Review

I thought that my placement was thoroughly enjoyable. The starting process was very welcoming and made adapting to the new work environment very easy. Everyone in the office were very warm and made a real effort to introduce themselves. I found myself involved in a number of projects, each of these brought new challenges and kept me busy. I was given the opportunity to travel across the water to another office and even got to stay the night, which was a great opportunity to see the bigger picture of the business.

When I was involved in projects I was surprised at the roles I was given within these. I was allowed to work independently on these, liking in with the relevant parties to gather more information. Everyone I went to for info. was very accommodating for me and made the process easier for me.

My manager and I had regular touch point meetings to assess my project work as well as my personal development. Due to the short deration of the placement she made it a priority that I developed a number of transferable skills, these included excel skills, stakeholder relationships and presentation skills.

For the first week I had a lot of online training to due which was quite boring (but definitely necessary), after this was completed however I was linking in with projects. Most days I had plenty of work to keep me busy. I had a number of projects I could work on so I jumped between them. Due to the nature of my projects I had a number of meetings and calls to link in with other business areas.

I feel I was given quite a bit of responsibility during my placement. I worked along side experience colleagues who have spent a number of years in the business, together we worked on a project which involved gathering information and understanding from wider LBG colleagues. I was allowed to engage with these colleagues independently and feed the information back to the team. I was then given the opportunity to present my findings to a more senior colleague.

The skills I have developed not only helped me over the internship, but will help me with my career progression. I made it a priority to develop my Excel skills over my time spent here, I feel I am a lot more advance now than when I started. My time management skills as well as networking skills have developed, allowing me to schedule my day especially when organising meetings. There are a number of programmes available to learn and develop skills which are open to colleagues, I found myself partaking in a "Personal Brand" course. This helped me develop how I come across to others and line this up with the image I was to perceive.

The office is very relaxed. We follow a "Dress For Your Day" policy, this means casual dress is fine where appropriate. I never found myself having to explain what working I was going or where I was because there is a certain level of trust given to you. Everyone I encountered were approachable and willing to help. Flexible hours were available as long as you completed a full days work (8-4 etc.). A lot of the colleagues are given the opportunity to work from home a few days a week, this was available to me but I know of a few interns who were able to avail of this.

The placement was organised very well from start to finish. My manager gave me the opportunity to visit the office a few weeks before I began and get introduced to a few of the colleagues. On my first day I got my email and laptop set up, a few days later my sim card arrived so I was able to get my work phone set up too. My manager had set out a few projects for me to undertake while on placement and I set a few targets. I was given the opportunity to travel for a few days to another office and even stayed the night. There were a number of interns in my building so we were able to have regular meetings with different business units.

I had to set targets during my first week here. I wanted to develop my excel skills and start networking within the office so I had contacts in different areas. I also wanted to get better at time management as this aided organising meetings. There are a number of courses available, I undertook a "Personal Branding" course which looks at how people view you.

There are a number of graduate schemes within the company that I was kept well informed about. When talking to colleagues I noticed that a lot of them had began at different units of the bank and progresses.

There was a number of interns in my building and we kept regular contact. Part of the process involved an "Intern Charity Challenge". This allowed us to raise around £650 for Mental Health UK by running a number events including a sponsored walk. We had regular networking meetings with senior colleague to give us a real insight into the business.

The general area is pretty cheap compared to most places