HR Budget Management Review

This involved daily team calls and 1-to-1 calls with a line manager to keep up to date with what work I should be doing. When I had a task I was left to manage my own time and get back to my stakeholders. I had the opportunity to read out and ask other areas of Centrica to give me work or shadowing opportunities. There were charity and volunteering opportunities throughout, this was beneficial for me.

Yes: I have developed my professional communication and tone of voice to a high degree. Furthermore, it has allowed me to develop my excel skills throughout my placement as it was a key tool that was used. It has allowed me to become much more confident in many situations that I am less experienced in and also I have been able to make use of new industry Microsoft software. There are large areas of development.

I was given a fair amount of responsibility however my line manager worked with confidential work so often I was given menial tasks for example finding duplicates in a list. I received more responsibility at the end of my placement with presentations to higher managers and a little bit more lee way into what work I was undergoing. I went and found work that interested me alongside what I was given by my line manager.

There was lots of support and guidance throughout my internship. There was a stream meeting every Friday with a graduate employee, line manager, multiple early careers colleagues that were always available to have a chat or support. My line manager spent a whole day with me towards the end of my placement reviewing all the work that I have done as well as giving me feedback about my presentation and personal skills from working with my colleagues.

There was a great caring culture throughout the business, aiming at all types of people and was something that really shocked me. However, the lack of in office working meant that forming a network was much restricted because meeting people or talking to them was restricted a lot more by the amount of meetings everyone has, no longer do we have the quick catch up over a coffee at lunch but rather we must fit into schedules.

I did enjoy my placement a lot towards the end of my placement however, at the start I had lulls within my work and this led to me getting disheartened. As I pushed for more work and got more involved the enjoyment greatly improved but this as after a lot of pushing from myself, this also required one to be quite outgoing and meant that I found it very daunting to get people to give more work

Yes

Make sure that you start pushing from the get go to get involved with the whole team. For the interview process and assessment centre make sure that you show your knowledge around the industry as well a passion for the changing energy sector. If I could do one thing differently it would be to get my line manager to spend the first week with me in office so that I could develop the relationships I need throughout.