The five-week journey in Capgemini as part of the inaugural E.L.I.T.E. program has been nothing short of being a remarkable one. It all started with the core team welcoming us at the beautiful Hyderabad campus. The first day at your job is always the one filled with a lot of excitement and nervousness, same was the case for all the 19 of us. I can safely say that after these five weeks, the excitement is still there but the nervousness has changed to curiosity and eagerness to learn.
The first week was filled with a lot of senior leadership sessions, giving us a sense of high expectations everyone has from the E.L.I.T.E. team. The common theme in all the sessions was the focus on the core values of Capgemini, which is imbibed in all its employees and has been Capgemini’s success mantra for the past 50 years. The week also had a lot of fun in store for us starting from the opening day party at Hyatt to the “Scavenger Hunt,” the highlight of the week for me as it provided me the opportunity to explore Hyderabad as well as gave me a chance to work alongside other fellow trainees. It was a perfect week to start our onboarding process, setting huge expectations for the coming four weeks.
The second week truly gave us a feel of being a part of a truly global organization, having calls with senior leaders all through the day and even night. It gave us a flavour of what to expect when we start off with our rotations. The week included interactions with the CXOs of the FS unit, which was a very overwhelming experience for me, in the sense that this program is closely monitored by senior levels and we will be the pioneers of it going forward.
The “Pinnacle Workshop,” the main highlight of the third week, made us realize those small little mistakes we unknowingly commit in our day to day communication. The two-day workshop helped a lot in improving our skills and work on the small little things that will matter a lot in our careers going ahead. Then came week 4 with a lot of time designated to our training projects as well as our CSW project (for which we went to Les Fontaines). It was great fun working in teams, brainstorming and coming up with concrete plans to deliver our projects.
The last week of the on boarding process, perhaps the best also, gave us an opportunity to visit the beautiful Capgemini University in Les Fontaines, France. I would not be wrong if I say that all of us were awed by the setting of our CSW workshop. The workshop provided us opportunities to practically implement the learnings which we got from various leaders and sessions during last four weeks. The week ended with a wonderful day in Paris, exploring the beautiful city.
All in all, a jam packed onboarding filled with fun and a lot of learnings. We made some mistakes along the line, but that again provided us with an opportunity to learn and improve which is what is expected of the E.L.I.T.E team and that is exactly what we will deliver. The next one year is filled with a lot of opportunities, and I am eagerly looking forward to the interesting work I’ll do as part of my four rotations.