Internship helps in developing employability skills that are necessary in order to strengthen both the business and management skills. In the current study based on the intern’s experience at Northshore Resource Centre, four different aspects of the internship have been discussed. In the first section, six key management and business skills of the intern have been discussed. In the second section, reflective evaluation of the business skills has been provided. In the third section a reflective framework for future career prospect has been discussed and in the final section, the evaluation of the manager’s feedback has been provided.
The previous work experience at Northshore Resource Centre involved customer dealing, assistance and acquiring donations from the customers as well. It is important to note that, the recyclable products used to be collected from the donors and arranged properly in the shelves. In order to perform effectively necessary management, communication and teamwork skill were required. For intern’s role at the workplace, following skills were required and helped in ensuring effective performance.
Stevens & Norman (2016) have identified that business and communication skills can include technical skills, conceptual skills and interpersonal skills. The specific skills help in enhancing potential of an intern for performing specific tasks at the workplace.
Problem solving: In order to work as an intern at the Northshore Resource management, problem solving skill was essential. According to Akhtar et al (2018) problem, solving skill indicates ability to resolve issues or problems based on the solutions that can help in mitigating the issues. Effective problem solving skills help in understanding factors through which a merging problem at workplace can be resolved in a systematic manner.
Communication: It was important to communicate with the clients and people who are willing to recyclable products to the organization as an intern. Communication skill development is necessary for understanding the products that they are willing to donate. In order to work in the mentioned host company effective communication skill was required which involved active listening, speaking and empathizing. As the work required assisting the customers, it was important to apply necessary interpersonal skill in order to comprehend the requirements of the customers properly and respond to those immediately.
Collaboration : In the seminal treatise of Jackson (2015) about business and management skills, the author have suggested that collaborative endeavor is one of the key abilities of the workers that can cater the productivity of a respective organization considerably. In order to flourish in collaborative endeavor, apart from the recruited subordinates, the interns also have to develop a spirit of cooperation and mutual respect to proceed in their appointed tasks properly. While pursuing internship in Northshore Resource Management, the intern has to know the process of restoring balance between individual goals and collective goals.
Organizing: Organizing skills are also very important for the intern to acquire since, in organizational premises, time can be considered as equivalent to money. Furthermore, if the assigned tasks cannot be organized properly, then it might facilitate the emergence of workplace stress, which directly affects the productivity of the respective organization considerably (Jackson, 2017). Furthermore, since customer service has been read as a derivative of organizing the tasks associated with those services, good organization skills can reciprocate with repeated businesses.
Motivation : Motivation is one of the core factors that a worker must possess in order to respond to the tasks with optimum dedication. While doing the internship in Northshore Resource Management, the intern have experienced that the motivation of a worker can be retained in various ways such as rewarding his/her performances, encouraging his/her individual development and endowing him/her with flexible working hours etc. The intern has also come to know that the notion of motivation is directly proportional with the overall productivity of the respective organization.
Team building skills: In essence, the development of team building skills can be associated with the skills of developing a collaborative camaraderie with the fellow subordinates. Team building skills are essential for any worker to learn since it enhances the problem-solving propensity (Schmutz et al. 2018). In organizations, teams are typically built comprising of both novices and experienced workers expecting that the guidance of the experienced workers can assist the novices to overcome their loopholes and limitations.
In this segment, the intern is supposed to reflect upon the skills that he/she has been able to acquire during the internship in Northshore Resource Management. In this regard, this segment can be considered as the individual reflection of the intern on the acquired skills. In order to evaluate the requisite skills properly, the segment can be dissociated in accordance with the skills that the intern has acquired.
The reflective account is as follows;-
Organizing: In terms of the acquired skills and immediate results (in accordance with performance), the intern has been able to exhibit profound understanding about the necessity of organization and their impact on the respective workplace. One of the main understandings that the intern has been able to acquire is associated with the significance of time in the respective workplace. The proof regarding this understanding of time as an equivalent of money is the fact that the intern has been able to finish the assigned tasks before the time limits (Li & Armstrong, 2015). Furthermore, this understanding regarding time has endowed the intern with immense insight regarding the process of managing workplace stress in the respective domain.
Communication skills: Due to the fluency in the common mode of parlance, the intern has exhibited immense flair regarding the interpersonal communication between the customers and volunteers. Furthermore, the insight that the intern has been able to acquire is the fact that, in workplaces like Northshore resource management, which is inclusive to multicultural influx, communication skills, is the most efficient key to accomplish (or the essential glue) to develop a collaborative workforce in the workplace. Furthermore, the intern has been able to execute this insight properly by establishing a direct parallel between communication skills and team building skills.
Team Building skills: It is of no doubt that, the intern has accomplished an immense advantage in terms of team building since the intern is quite efficient in terms of communication skills. The inherent excellence in communication skills has facilitated the collaboration of the intern with the fellow customers and other associated volunteers. Apart from everything else, the intern has understood the importance of collective endeavor and the influences of those in the overall productivity of the respective organization. Furthermore, the intern also realized that collective endeavors could attend a task and complete it within a limited time span since the senior exponents actively guide the apprentices.
Time management: The importance regarding time and its impact in the respective workplace is one of the fundamental insights that the intern has been able to acquire during this process of the internship. Furthermore, it is also true that the intern has been able to execute this insight in the workplace premises as the supervisors of the intern have acknowledged the interns attempt to finish the allocated tasks with punctuality.
Importance in the business scene of New Zealand: It is of no doubt that the business scenario of New Zealand reflects an emerging economy; mainly because of the adoption of liberal economy. This aspect is corresponded with the influx of foreign expatriates in the business sector of the country, which make good interpersonal communication as a cardinal criterion to flourish. Apart from that, collective endeavor alleviates time management, which can endow the respective organization with a competitive advantage through serving the core customer base in an effective manner.
In order to prepare a personal framework based on the reflective evaluation of the skills acquired by the intern, the assistance of the Kolb’s experiential learning cycle has been taken. In essence, it is evident that the idea of experiential learning cycle propounded by Kolb is fundamentally framed upon four distinct factors and those are as follows;
In this specific juncture of the current account, it is evident that the postulates of concrete learning and the phase of reflective observation have already been done on behalf of the internship program. Thus, the framework that is supposed to be developed needs to incorporate the aspects of abstract conceptualization and active experimentation for the completion of the framework.
The phase of abstract conceptualization can be framed upon the columns of the insight that the intern has been able to acquire in the course of the internship. Before conceptualization, the abstract ideas can be narrowed down as follows;
In order to exploit these concepts in the practical premises, the guidance from the learning styles propounded by Kolb can be taken into account. In terms of developing the platform to implement these concepts, Kolb has emphasized on the aspect of diverging where the intern can be encouraged to take a different perspective in order to indicate to the possibility of reinterpreting the existing experience (McCarthy, 2016). However, in the current case, the intern can be encouraged to employ the technique of assimilation as propounded by Kolb to ensure the completion of the framework.
From the abstract conceptualization of the experiences and anticipating the possible outcomes (by problem solving as recommended by Kolb in Converging), the recommended framework for the intern might look like as follows;
|
Experiences |
loopholes |
Remedy |
|
Time management skills |
The notion of punctuality is not resonating with the flexibilities of organizational objectives |
1. Preparation of a schedule 2. Maintenance of it corresponding with deadlines |
|
Interpersonal communication |
Exploration regarding the execution of the skills is not properly aligned with organizational objectives |
Ensure the alignment with the nascent needs of the volunteers as well as the customers |
|
Team building skills |
Execution is not efficient |
Ensure proper execution in terms of congealing with the senior exponents |
Extending the aspects discussed in the previous segment regarding the framework of improvement, the internship supervisor has been able to identify five exclusive goals, which might assist the intern to improve the existing skills. Since the intern is from India, the intern encountered discrepancies in terms of industrial experience (as the factors are quite diverse). In the workplaces of New Zealand, the major emphasis is given into interpersonal skills since the workforce in New Zealand is diverse in terms of nationality and ethnicity. Thus, in order to evolve for the intern as a successful project manager in New Zealand, the intern needs to undertake certain goals to accomplish. These goals and the corresponding discussion can be categorized as follows;
|
Goals |
Methods |
Allocated timeframe |
remarks |
|
To be better at project management |
Performing mock activities to execute the time management skills |
2 to 3 weeks |
The punctuality that the intern has been able to acquire in terms of time management and the corresponding insight associated with it is not adequate to support the organizational objectives of Northshore resource management. However, consistent trials to align it properly have unleashed the possibility of interpersonal communication where the vehemence has been given to the aspect of collaborative endeavors (Schmutz, Kolbe & Eppich, 2018).). Thus, it is evident that the understanding is successful if the time management skills can be perceived as the derivate of collaborative attempts, which cater the organizational productivity directly.
|
|
Enroll in online courses for the improvement of the communication skills |
Online courses regarding communication skills |
6 months |
After the advent of globalization and liberal economy, the influx of expatriates in workplaces; especially in the units like resource management, is gradually increasing. In this regard, only possessing good interpersonal communication (be it verbal or non-verbal) skills are not enough if that cannot be used in culturally diverse workplace.
|
|
Attend online seminars for exploiting communication skills aligning with the organizational objectives |
Seminars on communication skill |
6 months |
The communication skills are associated with certain aspects in the workplace, apart from coping with culturally diverse workplaces. Thus, the execution of good interpersonal communication needs to be associated with the collaborative endeavors and team building skills.
|
|
Drawing a parallel between communication skills with team building skills (efficiency in story telling) |
Mock practice of storytelling and motivating skills |
4 weeks |
This goal can be considered as the extension of the previous one where the communication skills will flourish only if the parallel between the communication skills can be made with the team building skills (mediated by the collaborative efforts).
|
|
Continuing the practice of reflective observation (such as enhancing writing skills) |
Practice writing official documents like memorandum etc |
5 weeks |
Reflective observation needs to be followed in every stage of progress since the comparison of the account with the prevalent one can be considered as the proper evaluation of expertise. |
In the light of the above discussion, it is evident that the major skills that the intern has been able to acquire is time management, organizing and interpersonal communication. However, the efficiency of these skills can only be proven if these can be aligned with the organizational objectives of the Northshore Resource Management Company in New Zealand.
