By: Chong Sheau Ching
Producing
an output for an office means that it is for publishing for all to see online
or for a specific audience or reader, therefore, eHomemakers must continuously
keep document quality (online or as direct document to send), at a high
standard for supporters, sponsors, potential interns/volunteers/staff as they
too evaluate eHomemakers through the document they see to decide if they will
partner or join us.
Remember,
every knowledge worker who cares about career growth and any partner
organization who is involved with impact work wants to be with an organization
with quality performance as its culture. So, when you are involved in quality
work, the ‘karma’ comes back to you -- your name is either listed as a
contributor/ writer, or the urls of the work done are listed in the performance
evaluation for anyone requesting to know if you have done any quality work.
Although
interns are used to owning up to the quality of university document or project
(for example, ‘if I get 50/100 for this paper, it is my responsibility, I don’t
care what happens after I receive my grade, this paper is just going to sit in
my computer and no one else will read it!’), the work output in eHomemakers is
‘cared’ by others, so taking in feedback to make amendments is very important.
Receiving
feedback also means that one has to amend an output till it is correct,
presentable, professional and with intended impact. In the last round of any
editing, it is usually the final presentation format that could lead to several polishing
rounds if an intern makes the same mistakes over
and over again such as inconsistency of punctuations, capital letter for first
alphabet of a word in ‘title’, spacing, font type and size for titles and
subtitles, numberings, etc.
Below are some pointers on what you
can do to manage feedback to improve on content and presentation of any
document:
i.
Understand truly the concept of self-improvement: One of the first step to be a knowledge worker is to
cultivate willingness to learn. Learning
means improving on mistakes made, what more when your internship supervisor is
willing to act as your coach, your ardent supporter. Take away the ego, stop
defending your mistakes and insist that you are right while the office or
supervisor is wrong. Be open to others’ points of view, so you can improve your skills,
learn productive procedures and techniques and meet the expectations of those
that manage you. Then you can avoid making the same mistakes again. Your
greatest stride towards excellence is to overcome deficiencies and improve your
intellectual ability.
ii.
Be patient: It is the norm in any office
for a document to go around several times during editing between a team and the
supervisor until it is deemed ‘perfect’ for publishing or for sending to the
intended recipients especially videos or Prezi.
A common feeling towards ‘waiting’
time for supervisor’s feedback is that ‘why can’t people just reply today so I
finish with this task’. Remember, you
are not doing assignments to hand in to professor, you are producing output for
an office. The office is hectic
with constant deadlines, the supervisor/s can be involved in meetings and other
planned activities when your finished output arrives at her Inbox. Or she may
be editing someone’s else work and so need the undivided attention. Besides,
most of eHomemakers staff are teleworkers and may be doing so from other
countries with time zone differences or that they have to meet their own
deadlines, your waiting for their feedback can take several days. So learn to
multi-task, work on a new task or amend another one which now has received all
the feedback.
- Be professional in work attitude: Take a positive approach when receiving advice and view it as
a learning experience.Do not
get offended when ask to amend several rounds. Your time in the office is
counted for your internship duration, so why be upset? You are involved in
an international standard work!
Often new ideas surface after one
reads a document or watch a video more than once. Also, small formatting
mistakes maybe caught only after a supervisor or yourself see the document or
video more than twice! Besides, due to computer settings like using different
browsers in own laptops, the presentation format from you could look differently
on a different computer, resulting in other viewers or readers seeing a less
than professional presentation. So there has to be team work to discover why
and make the adjustment.
For videos, prezi and online presentations, accept
the fact that there will be several rounds of feedback from team, supervisor/s,
to other teleworkers in the project. In addition, every creative modification
such as a new image or a new animation, or a slight storyline amendment from
you may change the overall impact or the flow of the storyline and how the
messages come across. After all, you are still learning how best to improve, so
your willingness to accept feedback and change is part of an office work
process.
Refrain
from lashing out angrily, shouting or crying when given feedback on work output
or office behaviors. Or simply accusing the supervisor or teammates of being
rude to you when it is not true.
iv. Give a reasonable deadline to those who are
supposed to give you feedback: Write a polite email explaining the type of
feedback required and a timeline to those who are supposed to give you
feedback. Check with your supervisor about a reasonable time line.
v.
Organize the feedback you receive: Open a google doc with open access
for people to jot their comments. Or move all the email feedback into a folder
in email Inbox, so you can access all the feedback email from every one
efficiently. This way, you can make a ‘summary document’ on ‘what to amend’ from
all the feedback you receive – the pros, the cons of every amendment, and the
justifications for the amendment. Discuss your ‘summary document’ with your
supervisor before you make the amendment. When it comes time to edit, you can
do it once and not feel overwhelmed by pieces of information coming your way at
different time, leading to more confusion. This is especially true for video
editing as rendering is involved.
vi.
Multi-task: Work on another task, clean your inbox or manage
the work information you receive with proper filing, while waiting for a
feedback round to complete its loop, learn to enjoy team work as you are no
longer operating on your own as a student.
vii.
Believe
in the ‘power of now’: If you do not understand a task or
do not believe in doing it the way you are asked to, ask for clarification and
present your stand logically and clearly to your supervisor. If it is still
against your will, ask for another assignment. Clarify, enquire and justify to
yourself why you are doing a particular task as soon as it is assigned to you,
do not do it grudgingly, half-heartedly or unwillingly.
Training
interns who have never worked before in an office to take constructive feedback
has been one of the most difficult performance traits to groom for internship.
Impove yourself with these
tips:
Three tips for asking and receiving internship feedback:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/three-tips-asking-receiving-feedback-internship-dan-schwartz
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/three-tips-asking-receiving-feedback-internship-dan-schwartz
