Business Change Intern Review

Thoroughly enjoyed working for LBG and learning lots about insurance and the world of work. Out of my comfort zone for periods of time but this helped me develop personally and professionally as I was still able to deliver.

Everyone in my office was very welcoming and supportive whilst speaking to them. Slightly different as I didn't have a strict 'team' so interacted with many individuals

When my manager was around I was supported fully with any questions I might have. However, it wasn't always very easy to ask questions as my manager tended to be out of the office a lot with travelling etc so I didn't see my Line Manager that regularly which did make it slightly more difficult.

I found myself very busy during my internship. I was involved in many smaller projects so it was a lot about plate spinning, as I hadn't done this sort of role before I found this to be a big challenge keeping on top of everything. But, by the end I was much better at managing my responsibilities.

I was given responsibility for projects after a while and hence I was accountable for it. Typically, I wasn't delivering critical work so the responsibility wasn't as important. Nevertheless, for some projects I was trusted absolutely with my task and was not monitored that consistently so in these instances the responsibility was full for completing work and managing stakeholders.

Having never done an office work placement before, I learned huge amounts, from technical skills to basic administrative jobs which all helped me on my role and for the future. For university, these skills are rarely fully used at university, time is not necessarily a scarce resource in my experience. Although, the personal and professional development which I experienced will undoubtedly aid me at university and whilst in jobs later in life.

My office was not as lively as some I have heard about. As time went on I developed 'bant' with some colleagues, however this did take about 7 weeks which wasn't great. I was just disappointed I hadn't managed to get involved sooner. I believe this was also related to the fact that this was around the time of the first team social during my stay (Bowling and food). Since then, I have enjoyed working in the office more.

Prior to the placement I found the communication about location/activities for internship to be really quite awful. Interns were only informed of their location for the summer 8 weeks before which was not enough time. Delayed release of locations added insult to injury. I was rather shocked when I discovered my internship would be in Newport as I had absolutely no idea that was even a possible location, when I previously enquired what a likely location would be. I was given no idea that Wales was even a possibility. Whilst in the internship there was more structure and my manager had tasks lined up for me, unfortunately these did tend to be more admin tasks which I wasn't quite so keen on. If there was a lull in workload then I would reach out to other colleagues and generate work for myself. So this generally wasn't an issue during internship.

All of the interns got involved in mandatory training which every colleague is involved in. We also completed other training in line with the internship which I found informative. I was also given the opportunity to go to a training day in Group Change and get involved in a couple of talks.

Very appealing, I found myself truly harmonised with the values of the organisation which was very satisfying. Contrary to the benefits listed above, there are quite a few added benefits for the Grad scheme and beyond. Company car, private health care, holidays, flexible working etc etc.

Not really. I had to work very hard to get interns to participate in social events. It didn't help that there were about 10 of us. Two not living in halls with us. I had a lot of good fun with two of my fellow interns, one who I spent most moments with when out of work. This was great so I did have at least 1 very solid friend and then about 3 other very good friends. I lost hope with several of the other interns as I realised they were not about the social life. We went out once due to people going home on weekends consistently. This was a very disturbing statistic for me as I expected to be going out every weekend.

Cost of living in halls was relatively inexpensive as we only had to pay for food. Living in Liberty Park, Cardiff was paid for already. Not bad halls at all, although I found parking a major issue as I worked in Newport so needed to drive to work. However, I did solve this with a carefully planned working hours. Longer days to avoid parking permit times and finishing earlier on Friday. Did not do any socialising in the local area. Only went to the gym as part of my social exploration, but went with a friend.

Only went out on one night. Was very good when we did go out. Believe Cardiff to be a very good place to go out other than that, just disappointed I didn't see more of it.

If I searched then I expect probably, but there was nothing suggested outside of work so generally it is a no from me.