Engagement & Responsible Business Manager Review

Some very welcoming people on the team, and great location with accommodation paid for near the centre of London, with very reasonable working hours. However, did find there wasn't too much to do in terms of work outputs-- more kind of listening in on calls. Did easily get time off for medical appointments however, which was important.

Most colleagues were very friendly and welcoming, trying to involve me in team activities and keep me up to date with what was going on. Some colleagues gave me plenty to do when I worked with them and trusted me to produce outputs. However, a few colleagues were a little dismissive or gave relatively quick, easy tasks.

Had a difficult start given a paperwork mixup meant starting a while later than most other people, and so missed a lot of the planned induction. Some members of team were very helpful in getting set up, and all of the physical materials (if not the software) needed were present on arrival, but had I not had an internship here before I would have found the level of guidance very lacking.

Very little to do for most of the day most days, with tasks given for a day very quickly completed (for example, being given an entire day to update a powerpoint slide). Most tasks I had entailed listening in on phonecalls or sitting in on meetings. Even when I asked for work I would receive fairly meaningless, quick tasks.

Again, not much to do, and most of what was given was very low-level busy work such as changing the layout of a powerpoint slide. Most days it felt hard to contribute to the team in any meaningful way, with no impactful tasks given. However, I would say I was allowed to be fairly independent to a degree, though there wasn't much to get done while I was being independent.

One helpful thing has been to see how teams are coordinated and galvanised to work within such a big business, which will be helpful in my work running a committee at University. Further, my skills with editing powerpoint layouts have been stretched, which could be useful if I ever use powerpoint at University

It was a very small office, and normally quite relaxed, with some really nice people. However, the atmosphere could be tense given the management style and hierarchy in the office an the conflict this caused. That said, generally I was quite relaxed during the day and free to go get a coffee, for example.

The external contractor company, and the external security company, employed to manage interns were exceedingly difficult to deal with. For months there were multiple emails, phonecalls, voicemessages each week requesting more and more unreasonable levels of documentation each time (for example, payslips from every job recorded on the online CV). This culminated in the contractor company actually failing to organise background checks in time for many of use to start on the pre-arranged date. Hours were recorded with this company in a very strange, complicated process that meant essentially nobody knew how holidays worked, and no two interns got the same pay each week (despite working identical hours).

There was a lot of training on the job, with a wealth of online courses relevant to the job offered. Further, we had intern-specific group challenges that were useful test-runs of ways of working within a team and bank that were generally new to us and helped us to learn new skills without the pressure of outputs being tied to real-life business success.

It could be for a lot of people, but really isn't necessarily for me. There are lots of perks to working here full time, especially in terms of agile working for those with long-term health problems like myself. The pay for full-time employees seems good, and the culture is a lot more relaxed than the banks my friends have been interning at.

To an extent. There was lots to do in terms of pubs, bars, restaurants etc, with our accommodation being in Islington, but only if you could afford it. There were social events such as inductions and a boat party that were organised by the bank or others within the bank. However, there was something of a negative atmosphere on the intern social media space after a series of angry exchanges and arguments, so it was hard to get involved

High-- it was London-- but definitely not as bad as I was expecting, especially given our accommodation was paid for and there was a Wetherspoons very close by. Further, the canteen was fairly cheap given that for around £4 you could get a full meal. There was a big Sainsbury's and an Iceland within walking distance, which was convenient.

Very good, but very expensive for an actual night out. Lots of little bars and pubs, especially fashionable or themed ones, but I was paying three times more for a drink than back home. The only nightclubs seemed a bit high-effort to go to (think dresscode, entry fees etc) but there probably would be something easier if you looked into it.

To an extent, especially with the charity fundraising challenge that we had. This often involved going outside of the office, whether to other offices or to "shake buckets" (non-literally) in a tube station. This provided opportunities to meet people from outside of the business role and office you were in. Further, there were some social activities available to interns coordinated through the group, such as a boat party, that involved people working for Lloyds from all around the country.