Emergency Lighting Operations Intern Review

Fantastic opportunities within the placement company to get involved in various function, had plenty of opportunities to complete tasks at different levels: from standard tasks to presenting to senior management. Would have awarded higher that nine although some tasks were a bit repetitive and initial organisation for getting me set up in the first few weeks of my placement was poor.

Extremely valued, my line manager was very facilitating would help and provide support to myself on all aspects of my working life. The senior management team also provided good support and trust in the tasks I was given. My opinion was always valid no matter who was in the meeting so this encouraged me to get involved in all the meetings I attended and allowed me to always contribute

I was given fantastic support throughout my placement not just from my direct line manager but from over managers within the business, they always provided the support to either solve the issues or provide the necessary people who could help solve the issue. I was given weekly review meetings from my line manager to ensure that all my projects were progressing with no problems.

Overall I believe throughout the year I have had a large but manageable work load, however due to the project nature of my work this has resulted in fluctuation between each day. My day to day work initial started as being the large bulk of my work at approximately 6 hours of my day, although throughout the year I have automated or improved the method to reduce this down to 2 hours. The placement hosts would always provide me with more work if I didn't feel I was filling my working hours.

The level of responsibility that I was given in the company surprised me, I was given the freedom to make bold decisions that I didn't expect to be making. Obviously none of these decisions were flash in the pan ideas and did require relevant data capture and analysis to implement the ideas but never the less the ideas still stemmed from myself. The management team encourage you to make bold decisions as it allowed me to have to interact with the people it will be affecting to help learn on how to deal with possible conflicting ideas.

Not all skills I learnt at Eaton will be directly used in my degree field for my final year at university, however every training event/skills session that Eaton provided (there is a lot) will definitely benefit me in my future career. Some of the skills such as presentation training & project management principles are all skills that no matter which field you go into are essential for furthering your career and moving up the ladder.

In my office the atmosphere was very relaxed, everyone was extremely friendly and helpful. There was always a jovial atmosphere which allowed everyone to have a laugh but get lots of important work done at the same time. My office was situated near the warehouse & business unit managers so they were extremely helpful throughout the year. Furthermore I have made some great friends in my office which has resulted in a office weekly 5-aside football match which was a fantastic plus from the year.

Initially I had my doubts as I had to wait 2 weeks until I received a working laptop however from that point onwards the program was organised without fault. I received a quarterly phone call from HR program leader to answer any questions I had and to see how I was going, all the training events set up by the company were also very well organised as the provided travel expenses and hotels if the journey was unmanageable.

Throughout the year I attended 10+ training events; ranging from soft skills such as communication & assertiveness training to a important quality program call Advanced Product Quality Planning. The company ensured that if there was a training event you were interested in - within reason they would facilitate you to attend that session. Supporting the face to face training events Eaton has their own Eaton university online training program, this intranet based site has a wealthy of easy to learn training sessions that can be completed online in work hours or in spare time to further development. This part of the placement was exemplary.

I believe there is plenty of opportunities within Eaton for future employment. For my placement year my internship got extended from 12 months to 14 months to help the company with a large restructuring project. Due to the global and large size of the company I believe that there is plenty of opportunities for myself who has already been instilled with the 'Eaton way' of working with my pre-existing knowledge of ethics & health and safety within the business; so anyone who completes this internship will have potential for full time employment.

Before I started at Eaton we were put in contact with the previous interns at the placement location and the new ones on the site to be encouraged to get in contact to answer and questions along with advice on living together. I took this opportunity to live with fellow interns and mingled with plenty of our other colleagues getting invited to social events such a company paid trip to the races and Christmas party.

The site I worked at was located in Doncaster, South Yorkshire. To live in Yorkshire is very cheap, renting a property was easy and allowed me to safe a substantial amount of money ready for going back to university. The cost to live in Doncaster is also extremely low compared to most other places in the country, this allowed me to have a lot of disposable income to enjoy my time outside of work.

Living in a fairly large town provided plenty of opportunities to go out into the town at the weekends. Doncaster is very much a bar crawl night out, with silver street and Lazarus court having a endless streets of bars the night out in Doncaster is both very cheap and a good atmosphere. With taxi's in and out of the town very cheap and readily available it is always a cheap night out to enjoy.

The placement program itself starts with a 2 day induction event with a night in a hotel on the Thursday. Included in this hotel night is a intern meal with all the interns and some of the senior management team, this is a fantastic way to meet everyone initially outside the work environment and all the managers encourage everyone to go out into Loughborough town to have a good night out as long as everyone is alive the next day. The site in Doncaster also provided some good activities outside of work such as the Doncaster races