Industrial Placement Review

My placement as Enterprise rent a car was an overall enjoyable experience. There is so much to learn and throughout the duration I never stopped developing and growing my skills set. The atmosphere in the local branches encourages hard work, competitiveness and team work in order to achieve both personal and branch objectives. The management were friendly, helpful and enthusiastic every single day. With a range of tasks and job rotation, my placement was a great experience.

As we worked in our own local branches, with the same managers and colleagues, we spent a lot of time together and built good relationships. Everyone showed mutual respect from branch managers to car valets as we all worked similar hours and with the same effort. The only time when I felt under valued was on occasions when I had to stay later than usual, clean cars or drive long distances. As i worked in a busy branch this happened quite often. However, managers would not forget your efforts and usually repay you by letting you go early on quite days or buying everyone a coffee in the morning!

As soon as you join the company you spend a week at head office going through training. This included everything you need to know in a folder so that you can look back on this if you get stuck. Also, in my branch, every morning before we started everyone would run through any issues and problems they had, advice for the day ahead and a sales role play to help us improve our skills and customers service.

It varies depending on location, some days it was very busy and you would be working all day to try and provide the best service possible. Some day would be quiet and enable you to catch up on any work that needs doing. I was never bored and there is always something to do, from organising the week ahead, arranging the car park or updating cost tracking spreadsheets. Depending on branch location, a lot of the day can be spent delivering or collecting our fleet cars.

From the first month you start, you are given a specific KPI within the business to take responsibility over. This area can be measured and obtained in any method that you feel is best so you can implement processes that you and your branch manager think is going to work. Running the branch is a very complex task as it involved fleet management, delivery, collection, employee distribution and many other things. So you would not normally do this until about 8/9 months into the placement, this is huge responsibility when that time comes.

This a business management role that includes almost every aspect of business. Sales, customers service, leadership, logistics management, marketing, finances and managing people are the main areas of business. I learnt team working skills, professionalism and how to communicate with other businesses. All of the skills I learnt can be transferred to any other workplace, as well as the time management and resilience I built up which I will use in my final year at university.

Always a good balance of professional hard work and fun. Good atmosphere of everyone helping anyone that needed help, as our phone would ring every 10 seconds there would be a new problem that everyone would help to solve. This placement would give you the ability to multitask as you have reservation work to do along with answering the phone and serving customers. Because of this, people in the office would chat and make jokes alongside doing any work.

Very well organised, as Enterprise accept a large number of placements and internships every year, they have a complete process. With activities for you to do across every stage, a full year of meetings arranged and easy support available for everyone. The application process is seamless and much better than most other companies as it is quick and easy without asking for irrelevant information. They have processes and natural progression across the placement, so you will be very well looked after.

We received initial training, 30 day, 90 day, 6 months, 9 months and end of placement training. Alongside monthly one to ones with branch manager, 3 meetings with the area managers, meetings with people in different areas of the business and daily sales and service coaching. With a full folder to complete, Enterprise invested a lot of time and effort into developing employees skills set. The end of completing the folder, you would sit a management qualification which can be used in any future job application.

Enterprise hire almost completely from within. Most start out on a placement or graduate scheme, then progress onto management assistants when you pass your MQI exam. After this you can start applying for assistant manager positions, which gives you the opportunity to show you can run your own branch or your own area. If you pass your MQI on your placement they will offer you a graduate position, for when you finish your final year.