By Paul Soh, NTU, Singapore, July 2018
eHomemakers’ internship program equips
interns with the skills to be knowledge workers and the strength in character
to thrive successfully in the modern work place where Internet technology plays
a crucial role.
An internship may be an intern’s
first exposure to the working world, as such, the experience will have an
important impact on his/her career upon graduation. Further, internship provides
rare moments where experienced industry players guide the trainees as coaches,
making it a precious opportunity for young adults to induct themselves into the
culture of the working world as knowledge workers.
However, in this age of instant
gratification, interns may feel under-appreciated and misunderstood when
supervisors point out areas where the interns have underperformed. Harbouring
negative feelings affect working relationships in the office. Nonetheless, eHomemakers
urge interns to have an open mind and be receptive to feedback for improvement.
Supervisors provide advise to benefit you, as such, cherish it and you will
grow rapidly.
Through the years of guiding interns,
eHomemakers have seen three distinct traits of interns who perform very well
during internship and go on an excellent career path after graduation.
Trait I: Adaptable to Work-place Paradigm
Amongst all
the soft-skills necessary to be a successful knowledge worker of the 21st
century, integrity is the hardest to cultivate and yet is the cheapest to
learn.
Suggestions to ease transition into the
work-place:
· When in doubt, do not assume: Interns may make the mistake of assuming that standards
and procedures in own universities, at other intern places or part-time work
places should be applied ‘wholesale’ into eHomemakers’ office without any
adaptation or modification. Be aware that each company or organization has its
own internal policies, professional standards, SOPs (Standard Operating
Procedures) and may even have new ‘work culture’ that interns are not used to
such as ‘adopt a low carbon-footprint attitude’ or ‘build team relationship
through office cleaning after lunch’. In
any work place in the world, any intern or staff follows the company/organization’s
office policies as these are related to their brand reputation and
product/service quality.
An example would be the formatting of reports and
digital contents. While interns may have had different presentation training previously,
following eHomemakers’ formatting policies
is
the normal work practice in any company or organization. Remember, the eHomemakers’
target audiences can be different from those in your previous positions!
So, before you start your assignment, check with your
supervisor for the organization/company standards and procedures, proceed and
do your best during your short stay at the office!
· Be humble and accept your mistakes: Understand that interns are inexperienced and would be
prone to make mistakes in given tasks. There is no shame in admittance and the
faster an intern recognises his/her mistakes, the faster he/she could improve
on skills and gain knowledge such as how best to communicate with a certain
audience group.
· Take concerted effort to prevent oneself from repeating
mistakes: Improvement means interns have
internalized the learnings to discipline his/her own thinking process.
Trait II: Eager to Learn
Knowledge workers are professionals whose occupations rely
heavily on the vast amount of
information (ie, the knowledge) they possess and the skills to manage
the information so that they can add value to the companies/organizations they
work for.
Interns at eHomemakers would encounter situations that
require them to make a discerning decision with basic or advanced knowledge in
a subject area. Thus, it is important for interns to take the initiative to research
the Internet, discuss with teammates or supervisors before working on an assignment.
Suggestions to prepare for a knowledge-reliant role:
· Prepare: Take the
initiative to prepare for the internship before the internship starts by
reading up on eHomemakers, its websites, social media channels and watching
project videos. Read up ‘eH-internguide.blogspot.com’. Ask questions, show interest and passion for
the work eHomemakers is involved in. Do not take the internship as just a step to
get the paper qualification.
· Be proactive: eHomemakers welcomes workable suggestions for improvement that come
with solid justifications especially when creativity is concerned. Suggest ideas to improve but give
justifications (ie, reasons). If your idea is not taken, don’t be angry or
disappointed, it means you need to rethink your idea, give more solid
justifications with more research and thinking, or make your idea presentation in
a clearer and move convincing way to your supervisors and teammates!
· Research and learn: Take the initiative to research on skill sets necessary to facilitate
your task. Prepare and improve on some basic skills off office hours if you
lack them especially on formatting for report, doing basic data-entry on Excel,
or making basic Power Point presentation.
· Follow eHomemakers’ standards of formatting a document or
a presentation: Use the office guidelines
to format communication and output.
· Manage your email: Effective time management means efficient information
management especially your email Inbox. For example, in Gmail, create ‘labels’ to
categorize emails you want to store. A pictorial guide is given below.
Trait III: Effective Multi-tasker
An article by Balance Career reminds us that the new-age workforce places great
emphasis on the ability to multi-task. Information connectivity enables employees
to juggle multiple work priorities without any mishap.
In the case of eHomemakers’ office,
most interns would be required to handle more than two tasks at the same time
as some of the tasks will need time for others to revert with their feedback or
time for others to find information for you. For example, you are given a Power
Point to do while you are involved in discussion of content for the next Power
Point. At the same time, you are to update articles in a website as and when someone
else completes the writing of the articles.
In addition, fresh graduates’ entry
level jobs often consist of performing minor tasks to support their immediate
supervisors’ work. Naturally, effective multi-tasking in the right manner in an
office leads to high performance for an entry-level staff who can be promoted
faster to a supervisory level!
Suggestions to better manage one’s responsibility:
1.
Time management: Interns could better manage tasks assigned by having a
clear time management plan. For example, plan to write articles in the morning
when you are fresh and focussed, plan to email and compile information after
lunch as such tasks require shorter attention span per task. After all, you have to jot down your daily
work activities in your weekly report!
2.
Eliminate
distractions: A common habit is to be
distracted by social media on smart phone and Facebook or Instagram on computer
while working in the office. Practice restrain and refrain from accessing social
media or doing personal things or playing online games. Check your smart phone
during break times or lunch or every 20 min (if you must), not every 5 or ten
minutes. Refrain from watching entertainment videos as soon as your supervisor
leaves the room and then quickly switch your screen to a work task when someone
walks past. Playing ‘cat and mouse’ never works well in an office. Besides, you
will never produce any output with quality when you are unfocussed.
3.
Using checklist and reminders: Use notebooks, post-it pads, tag email with different colored flags,
digital calendar on smart phone or computer, to remind yourself of the urgent
tasks or minor tasks that you should be responsible for in any day. Compile a
checklist of a series of minor tasks to complete first before the final completion
of a major task. Example, you are asked to be the chief organizer for an office
dinner, construct a check list of ‘what to do’, ‘who to do what by when’ and
demonstrate your leadership. This so that you know how to handle stressful
situations calmly and not blaming others when things go wrong. Remember, a calm character can be groomed to
be a work team leader who can implement projects.
