ASHLEY ANG brings you tips from a Human Resources Director and final year students to make your corporate internship a breeze.
It wasn’t easy for Ms Dion Lum to receive a corporate evaluation of ‘A’ from DBS, one of the largest and most prestigious banks in Singapore. Her superiors leave her to manage dozens of customer service calls and emails a day without holding her hand.
“If you need to get back to a customer about something, the only deadline is the one you impose on yourself,” she says. Used to being monitored by lecturers in Ngee Ann Polytechnic, the Banking and Finance student still finds the self-directed environment “kind of strange”.
Set in the real working world, corporate internships have no assignment brief. When the numbers on your GPA are insignificant compared to the real-world impacts of your performance, how do you get the grade?
1. Don’t just work hard - know how to work.
To most polytechnic students who are used to working on projects over weekly or monthly time frames, working quickly at the expense of the final product might seem like a poor choice. But according to Ms Yeo Lay Lay, Senior Human Resources Director of Philips Singapore, most corporate organisations value speed over quality.
“The corporate environment is usually fast moving, (and) the 80-20 rule applies,” she says. The 80-20 rule in the workplace states that all company decisions made should have a 20 per cent calculated risk of being unsatisfactory. “Perfectionists usually lag behind.”
Ms Yeo recommends interns to spend the first two to three days being open-minded and familiarising themselves with the culture of their workplace. Interns initially struggle with organisation protocol and knowledge of company terms, such as acronyms, of which Philips Singapore has over 6,000. As employees are generally willing to help but are busy with their own projects, interns should be patient when asking questions.
2. Kill office politics with kindness.
“When somebody complains about something or they have some stories to share, it's good to actually just give them a listen.” Ms Lum believes the key to managing relationships with her fellow interns at DBS is to be open and friendly at all times, especially in showing empathy to them.
She tries to be proactive in finding ways to help them with tasks, as they will usually return the favour. At DBS, an intern expected to call a customer back can designate their call to others if they are not on shift or feeling unwell. Taking up calls on each others’ behalf in a ‘mutual benefit’ scenario has “helped keep relationships at work solid”.
But what about relationships beyond the office?
Ms Rachel Tan, a third-year engineering student from Ngee Ann Polytechnic, interns as an administrator at fire protection equipment company Fire Visionaries. She believes that among older coworkers, professionalism should be maintained at all times, and that your colleagues “should not be your friend”.
“Even if you try to socialise with them, they are busy with their own family and lives.”
3. Interning from home? Separate work and play.
COVID-19 has made many interns work their corporate jobs from home, and you might be one of them. With long and consecutive hours unlike home-based learning, it can be harder to concentrate.
“You need to create a divide between the time you do your work and the time where you’re relaxing.” Ms Lum recommends creating a designated workspace for your tasks in order to keep yourself disciplined. “So I, for example, associate my desk with doing work. And therefore, hey, I’m in work mode.”
TED suggests that a productive work-from-home space should have ample lighting, such as a space near a window or a lamplit desk. Studies show that workers exposed to more lighting sleep better at night. Experimenting with decorations also helps to make working more joyful by keeping ourselves focused.
While some interns take advantage of the home-based setting and work under the covers, Ms Lum claims they’ll be overwhelmed over time. Trying to relax in bed will be impossible when it triggers memories of working, which leaves you less dedicated. She also feels that taking your work seriously at a desk is a matter of respect towards your job and the lives it will affect, even when no one’s watching.
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