The memories of first day at Philips are still fresh in my mind. I met rest of the 17 interns from FMS, NITIE, IIM-I and the likes in a spacious conference room of Philips Lighting office at Cyber City, Gurgaon. We were excitedly greeted by our Campus Manager who took only minutes to make us all feel at ease and by the end of the day, I had realised that it was the beginning of a journey to remember for a lifetime.
Philips has a well-planned, three-day induction program for the interns wherein CMO, CHRO and other senior leaders walk them through different functions, products, services and general business knowledge and experiences. Feeling a little nervous on my first “working” day, I was introduced to my mentor and key project members for immediately taking over the complete responsibility of the project. Yes, that’s true! I was fortunate to have been assigned a mentor who showed great trust and confidence in me from Day 1 itself. Allotted a project under Talent Management domain, I was responsible to execute entire lifecycle of the deliverable right from requirement gathering and understanding, benchmarking against best industry practices to launching and communicating the program organisation-wide. I experienced first-hand the open, collaborative and autonomous culture that Philips’ foundations are built on and which drives its members. A week into my project and I was the sole authority to conduct business meetings with external parties for discussing their proposals and interview senior leaders, two being CEO and CHRO themselves, for capturing their thoughts about the need for developing people management capability of the managerial workforce. Such is the level of expectations and faith that Philips lays in its employees!
All this while, if there were many moments of “ups” then there were few of “downs” too but they only motivated me to do better with each passing day. Amidst all the hectic work schedules and exhaustive office parties, I learnt the importance of time management and prioritization to achieve actionable results and learn something worthwhile. The plethora of taxing project tasks and valuable networking opportunities that I received at Philips always kept me hooked to the sheer brilliance of the organization and helped me develop as a professional. Having successfully completed the first chapter of my journey with Philips Lighting, I now eagerly wait to embark on the next one as a Management Trainee in 2018!
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Go with an open mindset and watch yourself growing with challenges and learning with opportunities, everyday” is my mantra for all those wanting to make their internship experiences an everlasting memory.