Elements Transformed: My Virtual Voyage To Vedanta

I was honestly excited when I came to know that I will be going through my summer internship at Vedanta. Being a Mechanical engineer, it was not too much of an unknown territory for me. But being an HR, I was anxious instead, much contrary to the first sentence. “What kind of project I will be getting there?” or “What will be my role?” were some of the questions that were running through the mind. However, after I was done with it, I was surprised how much it changed me, for the better, as a professional and a human being. The tagline was reeling through my mind – “transforming elements”. Never knew it was meant for the personnel as well. Let me now take YOU, the readers on this transformation journey.

Rewind to the SIP days – sleepless nights, fierce competition and exciting opportunities to grab: I was wondering about my destination in the crowd of students in XLRI, Jamshedpur. I did not know that it was this when I was taken to the conference room with my senior patting my back: “good luck!”. One of the ‘dream companies’ for core engineers – and here I was: face to face, again. The massive screen before me showed many video panels with one of them being a large hall with lots of sophisticated instruments in the background. It had many senior members as well as few young faces – I was daunted at first sight, but quickly collected myself.

Vedanta was not at all unfamiliar to me, and I had also refreshed my knowledge beforehand with current affairs, newspaper, articles on InsideIIM and other websites being my guide. After a quick greeting, I was waiting for the first question and ready to make the first impression. The questions were not too much on the technical side and were instead on my understanding of the company, the current scenario of the metal and mining sector, about HR roles and few concepts on the same. To be precise, I felt they wanted to test how interested I was to intern there, and boy, I was! I felt that I was able to impress some of the esteemed panel members when I mentioned many facts and figures about Vedanta, one of them being the number of contract workers (I remember the point as one of the panel members smiled after I said the number accurately). I was able to know the results after few hours – that I, along with two of my friends, have been selected by Vedanta – and that is where I will spend my two months of internship. An exciting adventure was awaiting.

The sands of time fell even quicker, and the day of initiation of the internship came in a blink. But a lot had changed in between. COVID had brought the world to almost a standstill. Many internships were getting revoked, and suddenly a usual norm in an MBA course had a huge question mark stamped on it. I always had belief in Vedanta’s reputation and surely enough, they delivered it with flying colours. Unfortunately, we were not able to go to the plants physically for the sake of everyone’s safety but little did we know, we will be part of a unique experience to cherish. Ahead of most of its peers, Vedanta welcomed me just a few days after the pre-set date and set me off a journey that enriched me like never before. It was evident how seriously the leadership were taking our internship and how interested they were to see our work and progress.

I was assigned two guides and was put on a high impact live project. Not going into the details, it is more relevant to talk about how that project itself showed Vedanta’s focus on technology, innovation and the care they put for their employees. I was surprised, what an expansive role it was – I was in an integrator role between multiple departments, I was part of the many negotiation and presentation meetings, right at the side of many esteemed senior leaders, I was also tasked on introducing new avenues: the possibilities were endless. The best thing was, I was always encouraged to go ahead and out of the well-treaded road, was given ample opportunity to commit mistakes and learn from it and was appreciated for the same. I got chance to directly interact with the senior leaders, learnt some of the rules they had followed during their journey to the pinnacle, I learned aspects of not only HR but business and organization as a whole which I doubt can be taught in the classroom alone. When I delivered on task, they entrusted me with additional works, each equally exciting as the last.

I always felt like a part of the family rather than an intern. I always knew I was an ambassador of my institute, XLRI whenever I would go to an organization. Vedanta made me feel the same way, maybe even more. We were hailed as “ambassador” of Vedanta and was entrusted with the responsibility and privilege to add new feathers to this renowned organisation no matter what we did. Additionally, never did I expect such friendly and helpful guides and leaderships, so much so that even when I contacted them outside the work hour, they responded without any sign of agitation: which made me feel right at home. Even though it would have been special to be able to go and experience it physically, but the fantastic people at Vedanta never let me feel alienated. And just like that, after three months (yes, they allowed me to work on additional projects and longer than the stipulated duration)  - the one-of-a-kind virtual internship was over. I had gained a treasure trove of experience, had made hundreds of connections – better to say, relations inside and outside the organization and I had evolved, without me even realizing it.

If I am asked, which are the learnings from my first year that helped me to sail through these three months, I will answer – nothing and everything. Before you judge me for this ridiculous answer, let me elaborate.  There were elements of Fundamentals of Human Resource Management, ideas from performance management; I implemented many tricks I learned from compensation and benefits, I used quantitative techniques to analyse the data I gathered and even used concepts of ERP which is one of my electives scheduled for the upcoming fifth term - just to name a few. But the way to use them in this exact situation was not shown in the textbooks or in the classroom– because it can never be. No matter how many examples you learn, handling a real-life problem will probably always throw something new at you. And you must use everything in your arsenal to find an answer. But the approach you adopt, the knowledge you gain, the lifestyle you live during those three terms will surely come to your aid.

Now, as I resume my lessons at XLRI and sink under the plethora of assignments and quizzes, I am glad that I am doing so when much of the world is not so fortunate. And when I look back at those three months, I spent with Vedanta - I am grateful that I was chosen to. My humble advice to my juniors or all those who aspire to join Vedanta and experience the zeal or even just aspires to have a similar experience in their summer internship, would be: strengthen your basics, be aware of the current scenario yet be future-focused as well, don’t be afraid to take a creative approach and take calculated risks, work hard and just enjoy the time. Just like the song “Summer of ’69”, it may very well become “the best days” of your life.