UKI HR Partner Support Review

Overall, I had a work placement that gave me the opportunity to grow, develop my skills and build my business acumen. That being said my work placement was a year of two halves. The first 5 months I gained a wealth of experiences and had plenty of opportunities to expand my job role which meant I really enjoyed this part of my year. However, the remainder of my time (due to the GDPR) became solely processing Data Subject Access Requests, preventing any other opportunities due to the legal priority it took. Therefore, I found the remaining 7 months quite hard, and for me rather unengaging as this was not the role I had been brought in to do, and ultimately prevented me from getting involved in other things and carrying out my contractual job role. However, I do want to say that had it not been for DSAR’s this section would have been ranked a lot higher!

I felt extremely valued by my colleagues, there was a lot of responsibility in my role which meant you were trusted and your input was valued. Colleagues came to me and asked for assistance in carrying out their roles (e.g. supplying data, organising logistics...). They also want your opinion/input on what they are working on which makes you feel very valued. There is also a great community within the HR team, even the extended one!

I felt that this year my team had to very much manage ourselves as we were given very little guidance from our manager; we were very independent. We had to allocate jobs within the team (luckily, we got on so this wasn't a problem - but may cause issues if this was not the case) and personally I felt very little support from my manager (however this could be due to them being remote - not in the office) when I was struggling in the role and needed some guidance.

I was extremely busy within my role when it changed to being 'DSAR Support'. I usually worked over my contractual hours as there was always a large amount to do. I like to be busy as it means you constantly have something to do, and something to learn about. However, in this case I felt the team had too little manpower given the workload, so the tasks became overwhelming.

I was given a huge level of responsibility; much more than I expected as an intern! It was great the company trusted me with legal deadlines and it makes you feel incredibly trusted as the impact of you making a mistake is a considerable financial cost or reputational damage. Whilst I enjoyed the high level of responsibility I was given, I chose this role in order to gain experience in HR, and I have felt that for the past 7 months I was a member of the Legal team; this being an area I don't feel comfortable in due to having no legal background - therefore the responsibility I felt was inappropriate.

The skills and training I have gained at IBM will be invaluable to me. They have developed my business acumen and helped me apply my theoretical knowledge (gained at university) to a real life business context. Skills such as design thinking and HR accelerator skills will not only help me with University but my graduate career! IBM's education is second to none and I have learnt a breadth of information that I can use every day, in a multitude of contexts.

The atmosphere in the office is very relaxed and welcoming. It tends to be quite quiet on a Friday and a couple of other days in the week but overall, I love it. The HR Partner area always has people in and it is one of the places where there is a buzz.

There was a program solely set up for intern students which provided the emotional support needed, educational skills you wanted to develop and generally made sure everything was going okay. You can tell they are used to dealing with a large population of interns! This being said, I feel they could utilise their set-up more. I only saw my Early Professional Manager at set times throughout the year and there didn’t seem to be a close relationship between foundation and my actual business area (HR) as they were telling me different things at times.

The company provided training throughout the year using online education and drop in workshops. I felt they were invested in my personal growth, even if you weren't intending to stay in the company for a graduate role. They only time I didn't feel as supported and invested in was when my role became DSARs and the job became repetitive so there was little room for growth, and in my opinion not a lot was done to rectify this.

Routes back into IBM are quite limited as they only have a very small HR programme you can apply for as an intern and then the only other option is to come back as a consultant. Neither of these roles suited what I want in a graduate role so I won't be applying back. The schemes they do offer are good just not the right fit for me.

I lived with other placement year students and there was a good atmosphere at work. I get the impression our year didn't gel as well as others, but there were still things going on after work and events such as an intern Christmas boat party!

It was fine, I wouldn't say it was particularly expensive or cheap.The salary you get is enough to live off in Portsmouth if you budget properly.

The nightlife was fine, Portsmouth is a university town so when it is term time it is quite good. Ultimately it is what you make of it.

As Portsmouth is a big place there are plenty of opportunities to get involved with, but you need to be proactive about finding them. There are plenty of sports clubs around the area and a lot of gyms you can choose from!