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[31.8.2007]
The 10 week internship is drawing to a close anything but peacefully. I expected the last two weeks to be hectic but this is getting pretty hard I have to finish my projects including one that I set myself, which has taken up a lot of time and one new one that was throw at me last minute. On top of this I'm looking for a student house next year and trying to organise a surfing trip to France, departing the weekend I finish at P&G!
To recap on what I've been upto:
- Gender Diversity Review: I had to analyse data across all functions and bands within the MDO in order to find out what the male/female representation at each data point looks like. E.g. how many females in Product Supply at each band, or how many male new hires were recruited into marketing. Based on my findings I have put together a review for the MDO highlighting areas which need further investigation and making recommendations about plans for the future.
- Campus Recruitment Project: Using an online survey sent out to all Western European interns, I put together a review of P&G's recruitment systems, the websites, the brochures and the message we deliver to potential recruits. This was presented to the UK campus recruitment team a few weeks ago.
- Flexible Working Review: I have reviewed all the arrangements where people who work the the UK nad Ireland MDO are using P&G's flexible working system. Some are working part time, some are on maternity leave, some are on sabbaticals, and some are working from home. Based on the information I have put together a review and a training session on creating and managing the flexible working arrangements, which I will deliver to the HR team next week. Apparently it is an urgent requirement that I soften the blow of teaching policies with baked goods. Perhaps a good opportunity to try my chicken and cheese muffins...
- Manager's Online Toolkit: I have designed a guide for new P&G people manager's to find their way around the systems the company uses to manage salaries, learning and development, career guidance, flexible working and all the other bits and pieces they need to know. I am in the process of finding someone who can get my content online but sadly it looks unlikely this will happen before I leave. :(
- My last minute project is to design and run a leadership training session which I will deliver during our team meeting next week. I have decided to create a tricky leadership scenario based on a plane crashing on a desert island etc. and get people to share with the group how they would lead the crash victims to safety. Hopefully this will create some discussion which goes beyond the occasionally trite summaries of leadership technique like "having good communication skills".
As you can see I'm far to busy to continue writing this blog, so that should do for now. I will let you know how the chicken and cheese muffins go down next Friday.

[3.8.2007]
This week has been a bit more relaxed - we spent tuesday and wednesday at a hotel in Crewe having our annual away day. We spent the day on Tuesday doing team-building excercises on a low ropes and logs course. It was great fun and there are some excellent photos of strange balancing acts on bizzare tasks. We also reviewed the successes from last year and there were several rewards for outstanding work given out. The weather even conspired in our favour and we enjoyed a day of glorious sunshine. That evening a boozy supper gave rise to a collection of embarrassing stories and a great deal of laughter before we each drifted off to the beautiful rooms in the the hotel. I smugly shook off the hangover and got up early enough in the morning to fit in a swim in the hotel's brand new spa pool (very luxurious), only to find that David and Andy had beaten me to it!
On the second day of our trip, we were given a tour of the nearby Bentley Factory. This was a wonderful opportunity to see how their plant worked and we saw some really incredible feats of engineering and factory design as well as some truly stunning cars (including the new GT!). Over lunch we were given a presentation by the Bently HR team on how they managed a complete structural overhall after being bought by VW. They gave some very detailed but extremely useful insight into their process timing and their training schemes and some great examples of how they had improved their 'softer side' employee relations.
Finally we ran through our HR action plan for the coming year and did some work on mutual role understanding - a great opportunity to find out what everyone perceives their own role to be (whether it's Recruitment, Leraning and Development, Business Account Mangement, etc) as well as their perceptions of other peoples. This really helped everyone to align and prepare for the coming year of work. So although I won't be around to see the results, it was great to see the preparations to implement this fiscal's action plan.

I have also attached a photo of my team on the away day wrestling with the task of crossing a minefield with only planks of wood and our bare hands. I'm at the end at the back wearing blue t-shirt and grey trousers and looking puzzled!


[27.7.2007]
Well, it's Friday again but this week has been really crazy. A few times this week I've been working and ended up staying longer than I thought I would, but only because I've been so absorbed in one of the projects. The toolkit I mentioned last week is now almost complete, probably about 95% of the content is finished. I've had some great feedback from some new managers when showing them the tool and asking them what they would really use. My main task now is to get it built into an intuitive and attractive interface so that it has the best possible impact.

Other exciting news this week is that some results have come back from a survey I launched to all the other Western Europe interns. I'm trying to get some recruitment guidance together for a presentation to the UK recruitment team in a couple of weeks. With the results from the survey, I should be able to give them some sound practical advice on how to improve the recruitment process and P&G's appearance on campus. As for the weekend, I think it's definately time to reward my hard work with a couple of big nights and some serious sleep.

[20.7.2007]
The end of my second week as an HR intern for P&G. It's been pretty busy! In the first week I was given and started work on four sizeable projects. I'm here for ten weeks, but the time projections for the four tasks add up to 17 weeks. As the only Human Resources Intern in the UK, I'm going to have my work cut out!

I am particularly interested in one project: providing new P&G managers with a toolkit to get them going in their first year in charge of direct reports (employees). An old and out of date toolkit, finished and published a few years ago is my starting point and I have to bring it all up to date and get it built into an internal website so that managers across the whole of Europe can access it anytime and anywhere.
The website's got to be simple and intuitive but has to conatin all the information a new P&G manager might need. Only problem is...I don't know what a new P&G people manager might need! So I'm working closely with my colleagues in Brooklands so I can scrap the old stuff and re-focus the toolkit on the current Western Europe business development areas; building our People, building our corporate reputation and building our systems.