Production Control and logistics placement student Review

I enjoyed the structure of the work environment and I got on really well with the other placement students, graduates and most of the other members of staff. Unfortunately for me my mentor wasn't able to dedicate much time to provide oncoming work or training which hindered how much I was able to do and how much I enjoyed the year.

For the most part I felt valued by my colleagues and people were happy to give me work to do and be confident I would get it done. I established good relationships with the majority of people that worked there and I enjoyed working alongside them. My mentor didn't spend much time with me so we have rarely spoken throughout this year, which for me is very disappointing if you consider she is supposed to be mentoring myself.

I spoke up about my lack of workload repeatedly to the hr staff at our plant but they didn't really take it seriously until my university got involved. At this point I was told I hadn't brought it up and they were disappointed. Those in HR higher up and at other plants were more helpful in this matter but there wasn't much they couls do given how far away they were. My mentor didn't provide any support or guidance and didn't make herself available to me.

Over the course of the year I was given several tasks which had to be done on a daily basis but after you learn how to do them the time they take to complete is a lot shorter. I was busy for the first hour of arriving and the first two after lunch but aside from this I had nothing else to do during the day. I made myself indispensable to be used by anyone in my department and throughout other departments and have ended up working a lot alongside controllers which I have enjoyed. For me it was unfortunate that there wasn't much autonomy or ability to pick up new tasks.

Due to the lack of workload I wasn't given too much responsibility. I thought during this year it would really stretch me and give me an opportunity to develop myself and my skills. The jobs I did were important and there would have been fallout if they were done incorrectly but they were mainly data entry and similar things so it wasn't difficult to be done correctly.

I didn't really receive any proper or formal training so most of the things I learned were on the job. The things I have learned during the placement I think will help me in my career and at placement because I have gained transferable skills and learned more about the industry but I didn't gain much practical experience.

Everyone in the office apart from my mentor was really happy, helpful and brought positive energy to the office. We had a radio and people would have a sing and a dance first thing in the morning. I got to learn about their lives and backgrounds and we went our for our lunch breaks on Friday together .

The process of getting the placement was very structured but the organisation of the placement was pretty poor. My mentor said they had loads of work to do sense why they needed me but she was hesitant to pass any of it on. I didn't receive much work from her and she made it aware early on that she wasn't comfortable me taking on work for other people. She said I had to be in the office all the time in case there was something I needed to do.

The company took us on a two day training event which was very helpful about learning about the company and things. We also had shop floor experience where we were shop floor operators for the day which helped understand different elements of the work environment. After that however I received no other formal training or development and there was no time specifically dedicated towards this.

The vie and graduate scheme are both appealing to me. The opportunity to work abroad or do a masters appeals to me. I would prefer to work in a different plant and function to understand more about the different elements that go together.

I was really lucky because all the students at our plant got on really well and spent a lot of time together. There was another plant across the road and we socialised with their students as well and went out for birthdays and for night's out. Colleagues often went out and organised social events.

We lived in Lichfield which was a bit expensive to rent but other costs weren't too bad. There wasn't much to do socially there so we often had to travel other places if we wanted to do something social but Birmingham was fairly close so this wasn't much of an issue.

There was no clubs where we lived but there was lots of pubs and a couple bars that were quite good. We wasn't far from other cities so we were able to organise night's out.

There wasn't too many activities to participate in outside of work apart from what we did with the other placement students. They organised a family fun day but not many people wants to go and no other activities have been organised.