Summer Internship Experience At Piramal Launchpad | Ananya Sarkar

"Seek first to understand, then to be understood"

the quote By Stephen Covey helped me throughout my internship journey. In my first year, I had completed two field internships as part of the curriculum and those facilitated the understanding of my developmental areas which motivated me to be a better professional from each opportunity. They helped me in better business understanding, the role of HR in volatile and complex times and how culture plays an integral role in each strategic decision made to be cascaded to the grassroots level. My experience says that Passion to learn, having a Purpose, Integrity and Agility are qualities which are definitely checked by any interviewer of a company before offering an internship to a candidate. My preparation before the internship included reading up on news and last two years Annual reports of the company and understanding the various businesses from Pharma, Consumer Product Division, Financial services and Realty. So before the start of internship nearly two weeks ago before, Piramal Launchpad team rolled out a survey asking our superheroes and the songs that describe our attitude towards life. I did not know why then, but over these two months I was totally captivated as to how they gave the personalised touch to the whole virtual internship journey. I looked forward every week to new learnings through Leadership sessions and Fireside chats where each leader shared their myriad experiences of how values Knowledge, Action, Impact and Care to play a crucial role in their everyday lives and business. Each one provided an understanding of various aspects of business whether it be Piramal Foundation, Pharma Solutions, Realty or Financial Services. Campus team and the Learning University made all endeavours to ensure we have a steep learning curve through Virtual tours, Learning Nuggets, Team Learning competitions, Pitstop & Leadership connects and I am so grateful for that. The induction program was designed in a wonderfully engaging manner such that we had BHRs and Launchpad team to reach out in case of any problem.

Each leader spoke how to maintain calmness,  and how to navigate through the internship. I did my Human Resources internship with the Pharma Solutions Business across three of the Indian sites. The live projects opened a plethora of opportunities to apply what I had learned in my entire learning journey so far. One had to understand that these are crisis times, so one had to be very strategic with time and listen to as many stakeholders to get a holistic understanding of the
problem and address the elephant in the room.

Asking the right questions, Resilience and Effective listening skills really helped me connect with the right stakeholders and completing my projects within time. Stakeholder and Time management played a very important role in a virtual internship. In addition, challenging one's own assumptions, seeking constructive feedback and working proactively to refine your observation and insights from data definitely helps in devising sustainable solutions. A tip for future interns in case of a virtual internship is that Perfectionist Mindset can be a deterrent and one may get stuck in analysis- paralysis dilemma. So, the mantra is to try, fail and pivot and give another shot at it and seek constructive feedback from multiple stakeholders. Further, don't forget to reflect on your entire weeks' progress and note down points where can you can improve after your internship is over, this is a huge opportunity as this will only refine you to be better professional. This internship improved my planning skills as I was able to organise my day better- managing my groceries and lending hand to my family to support them equally for various household work as I kept on working on my projects. I must mention that to add the cherry to the whole learning experience, the farewell session was equally fabulous as The Launchpad and Social Media team left no stone unturned in making us feel special and giving out Virtual awards to the summer interns. The final takeaways in these two months: I must say these two months, Four C’s helped me all along with Curiosity, Compassion, Context and Creativity.

•  The projects definitely made me Curious to understand the What & Why of the problem.
• Compassion helped me empathise with how stakeholders see and feel it as I did the diagnosis.
• Context and Creativity helped me come with recommendations from various sectors that the business can take inspiration from and build their capability.

The company put in all endeavours so that interns can get the best out of these uncertain times and truly Against all odds. I hope my post benefits anyone who wishes to do a virtual internship and how to manage it well.

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