Retail Rectifications Analyst Review

In terms of enjoyment, I feel rather indifferent towards the internship. While the role itself was not particularly bad, it was not especially fun, or interesting, meaning that enjoy is probably quite a strong word. However, my team were fantastic, and this made work enjoyable (or as enjoyable as possible).

Like I said above, my team were absolutely fantastic. I worked within a small governance team, that sat within a wider team. The small group environment allowed close working relationships to form. Within a few days, I felt in a routine and more importantly felt a part of the team. A particularly impressive part of the internship was the extent to which my team believed in my own abilities and often left me to work independently on reasonably important work.

My line manager was always happy and willing to answer any questions I had about not only my own work, but also his work and wider questions about the group. Despite being busy, he always found the time to answer my questions. He also scheduled weekly 121 meetings in which I was encouraged to discuss my own personal development points as well as keep him in the loop with the project I was leading. I definitely felt part of an extremely supportive environment.

This is a hard question to answer. Because I was lucky enough to be given a project, I was responsible for my own workload. I am always keen to get tasks done in a timely fashion - meaning I was often ahead of the game in terms of timescales. This naturally resulted in quieter days. When I asked for more work on top of my project, I was given mixed responses. Sometimes I would be allocated a small one day task to keep me busy - but sometimes I was given nothing. However, I appreciate my manager also wanted to avoid giving me menial admin jobs. For this I am grateful, as I feel the work I was given was beneficial for my personal development. Interns were also given a group charity challenge - so this often kept me busier on quieter days.

As I have mentioned, I was given my own project to manage. After my initial training phase, my line manager and project supervisor were more than happy to let me run as much or as little as I wished. I opted to run most of the project by myself and asked for help when I feel that it was needed. This help was always available, but never pushed on me. I feel in terms of how this was managed, I was very impressed.

I developed a lot of my skills, a prime example being my communication skills and use of email language. This will be helpful is necessary in almost every area of life. I also learnt a lot about myself and fine tuned my abilities to work under pressure. However, I do not feel that my skill set was pushed as much as it could have been - meaning that in certain areas my potential to develop was reasonably limited. I don't feel this is an issue with my team or the role I was given - more to do with the group culture.

Within my small team, the atmosphere good, and we share a fun working relationship. My manager creates a nice, fun atmosphere and manages the team in a relaxed manner. However this was overshadowed by a largely dull office and workplace culture. It appears that many people at Lloyds come to work purely for the good paycheck. There is hardly any passion or drive to better yourself. As I would like to stress, my small working team had a good atmosphere, but the wider office and culture was dull.

Everything was extremely well organised. Right from day one, the wider company arranged events which occurred with almost no errors or hiccups. When I arrived in office, my working team had a clear support network set up, a permanent desk, all computer logins etc. This allowed me to get straight to work and I never felt like there was not adequate planning for my arrival by my team. The only criticisim would be poor group IT support when minor things did go wrong.

There were very few training and development opportunities such as courses or trips away etc. While online resources were made available, these were often never that interesting or engaging. The training/development aspect should be focused on far more next year. We had training webinars arranged by the emerging talent team. However these were very poor and were seen by many very negatively.

The graduate scheme is very well paid (if perks are included) and it is likely that the development opportunties are impressive in terms of courses that are offered to grads (such as a banking diploma). The scheme also seems fairly well organised, and varied in terms of giving grads different experiences in very different roles. However, LBG is not a desirable place to work for a young person just starting a career. A culture more geared towards personal development with exciting opportunities to move abroad or work on pioneering projects would be far more suitable for a young person.

Because LBG paid for accomodation amongst all interns, we live and work in close proximity. This naturally leads to good relationships forming beween everyone on the programme. I think this made the overall 10 week internship enjoyable from a social perspective and has hopefully resulted in some freinds for life!

The area I lived in was fairly cheap. However there was not much to do in the area meaning myself and the other interns went into the town centre at nights and after work. As you would expect town centres are expensive country wide.

Leeds has a good vibrant nightlife making it an enjoyable place to live and socialise in.

There was absolutely nothing work related to do outside of work. All activities I took part in were arranged by myself, not work.