My Summer Internship Experience in China: Support and encouragement all around
Credit to Author: Employee Voices| Date: Wed, 04 Sep 2019 13:00:40 +0000
My summer internship experience at Schneider Electric in China has given me the tools to succeed- right from the start. From my first day on-boarding to the continuous support, encouragement, responsibility and teamwork, I felt prepared for my internship!
The First Day of my Summer Internship
Monday, July 1, 2019, was the first day I officially became an intern for Schneider Electric. After a brief report to my leader, I rushed to the first floor of the headquarters lobby to attend a required On-boarding day for Schneider Electric. Unexpectedly, the content of such a simple activity was extraordinarily rich, especially compared with having participated in the first day on-boarding of companies Microsoft and Google.
Structurally, the activities were divided into three parts: live speeches and interaction in the morning, lunch, and an afternoon visit to the factory. In the speech session, experienced employees from different departments and levels from President to new recruits were invited to share their experiences in a business context of the company. This included developmental direction, specific work requirements, how to adapt to the workplace atmosphere and how to face and solve various kinds of problems encountered in the workplace. In particular, the training department conducted an on-site interactive training on how to work well in a team, which benefited me a lot.
At noon, we had lunch together and took this opportunity to have in-depth exchanges with our predecessors on various issues. We also met a large number of intern partners! In the afternoon, we visited factories and learned about workshops and processes.
After a day’s journey, although I am tired, I gained a lot, and I was very glad that I was able to get these trainings and experiences at the beginning of my career, avoiding many detours and lessons in my future work during my summer internship and beyond.
Echo, Vice President of Human Resources, Schneider Electric China, also emphasized that 80% of employees in Schneider Electric China are still working at Schneider Electric since they have joined after 1996. This was amazing to hear especially in China where employee turnover is so frequent. I believe it has something to do with Schneider Electric’s attention and concern for their employees through their employee value proposition.
Encouragement and support
After a successful interview, Shirley from HR answered my questions very patiently on the telephone. Even though my line manager, Ken Zhang, is very busy in his daily work, he always guides me through patient enlightenment and methods while encouraging me constantly.
Encouragement and support are the first and deepest feeling I have after joining Schneider Electric for a summer internship.
Ownership and Teamwork
The second point is responsibility and teamwork. There are five interns in my department and much of our work overlaps. We help each other and cooperate with each other on our work and projects.
Take two small examples: once I had just learned a process and happened to be in charge of this business process independently. To be honest, I was a little nervous, afraid of making mistakes. Halfway through my work, another intern who taught me this work ended her job, so she came to to help me with my project on the fourth floor. On another occasion, I found that some data in the work notes were incorrectly entered, but in fact it is not particularly important and there is no absolute necessity to modify. But the next day I found that another intern had corrected all the data very seriously, which not only required a certain amount of work, but also if I hadn’t happened to find that she was correcting the data, nobody would have seen her work.
Learn Everyday
Last but not least, is fast learning. At work, your leader may suddenly give you tasks that you haven’t been exposed to before, at which time the ability of fast learning is required. On the other hand, it is the study of one’s own work. For example, every intern in our department is required to deal with the contract in the contract management office in the first two weeks. It seems mechanical and trivial, but it is an essential process for the subsequent procurement work. Because it is impossible to give each of us a fixed time to learn all kinds of business knowledge in the actual work, we need to learn while doing business. The awareness of self-motivation and active learning is crucial.
My time during this summer internship at Schneider Electric has taught me many things and has given me new skills that I can use during my future career. I feel better equipped after spending the summer as an intern here.
About the Author
Zhong Chen works as an Indirect Purchasing Buyer in Schneider Electric. One month ago he joined Schneider Electric as a Summer Intern. Now he is still studying business administration at Beijing Jiaotong University in Beijing, China. What he believes is that “Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the more often and steadily we reflect upon them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.”
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