Final Reflection: Relating What I Learned with My Experience

Observations

Mondelez embodies the culture of creating JOY. The office decorations and display is part of its strong cultivation of developing a Great Place to Work. However, from what I observed throughout my internship was different from what was shown around the office. The colorful display that depicts the essence of happiness contradicts the culture and action of the employees. Everyone was so occupied with their own work, there was not much human connection to create real moments of JOY. Everyone seemed to talk for work related conversation. Nevertheless, there were still some people who took the initiative to have fun once in a while. For instance, the marketing team always celebrate birthdays every month. Another instances that got everyone together was when Sarimah, the marketing secretary, place a bell in front of the marketing director’s office as a funny quirky signal for any announcements.

Due to the fact that employees were too engulf in their own work, a special plan was taken by the top management. Employees were allowed to take a break from their work on every Friday afternoon after 2pm to catch-up with each other, thus Catch-up Friday was born. This internal campaign taken has boosted the morale of the company despite last year’s drop in performance. It made everyone felt more relax and dedicated to their work, instead of plainly working hard.

Key learning

Workaholics like myself often stay back after work to finish as much as they can. I realize that no matter how much you do there are always endless tasks to be done. One of the things I learn is to know when to stop for the day and return home. Once you have done all you can for the day itself, you should not strain yourself in wanting to finish up something that would take more time to finish. Having things hanging does not mean that you are procrastinating but a sign of too many things to be done by a person in a day. This is where help is needed in-terms of dividing the workload or a more effective method of getting it done.

Following timeline and getting things done is important. Most of the time the task that required us to complete involves others. Owning the task means that you are responsible for the outcome, meaning you are required to constantly engage with others, reminding them to provide you with their results. I have started to learn that in certain situations, it is not negotiable to extend the deadline as it will effect a series of decisions to be made after that. I need to be stern and provide solid reason to the person that certain task needs their immediate attention. I have managed to do so in certain situation such as acquiring samples. I manage to obtain all signatures within 2 hours due to the urgency where normally it requires at least 2 to 3 working days.

Development & Growth

Multitasking is never a good thing as it divides your attention. I learned how organize my time effectively by using an Excel checklist that was suggested by my manager. It not only allowed me to keep track of the progress of task needed to be completed but also ensured that I plan my day effectively. It provides me the opportunity to focus more on each task instead of switching around between tasks frequently. For instance, if I had multiple emails to follow up and a major item to be done during the day, I would schedule a certain amount of time to finish up my emails and proceed with completing my other tasks.

Another key lessons I learned throughout my internship is to know what you want and speak up. I did not manage to speak up when I wanted to because I was too concern with other aspects of the conversation such as inappropriate timing or wrong person to converse with. I learned that asking questions is also a skill that I needed to improve on. Due to most of the time, I took the things presented to me as it is without evaluating it a step further. I often ignore the curiosity of knowing more when I was not clear. It was also crucial to know when and how to ask a proper question.

Key Achievement

Among the key achievements that I am proud of is managing the Dato’ Siti gift basket for January and February. In January, it was my first try in creating the gift basket as an appreciation for Dato’s Siti Nurhaliza for being Cadbury’s new ambassador. It was a simple gift basket that did not manage to be feature by Dato’ Siti in her personal social media. In February, I manage to develop an interesting gift basket that is decorated by helium balloons. It was aimed to create JOY for Dato’s Siti leading her to post about it in her social media. I managed to do so which generated 10.4k likes (12/4/2015) in her Instagram. This assisted in generating brand awareness as well as instilling confidence in the Muslim market post Cadbury Halal issue.

Being one of the main sponsor of the Bake & Sell 2 television program, Cadbury sponsored products as the main ingredient for the semi-final stage of the reality TV competition. I managed to requisite and coordinate the product placement of Cadbury within a short amount of time given. I also assisted in providing the scripting for Cadbury’s product to be highlighted by the host of the program during the shoot.

On top of that, I managed to efficiently provide a weekly performance tracking for the new product development – Cadbury Dairy Milk Roast Almond Sharebag which was only launch during the end of December. After 12 weeks of evaluation, the product is well received by the consumers and will have a high chance in continuing as one of Cadbury’s range of product.

As part of leading the on-ground launch for Cadbury Dairy Milk Marvellous Creations, I managed to construct a fully accurate brief for the trade Presenter for the traditional trade customer. The content was simple and straight to the point to properly brief the targeted audience. However, due to scheduling it did not receive the final approval and be ready for printing before I finish my internship.

As part of my key responsibilities, I managed to ensure that the Marvellous Creations Roving Truck schedule is maximize by the agency. With 24 days of activation, the truck will be stopping at a maximum of 8 locations, focusing on major areas with high traffic and also supporting several key account stores of Cadbury Dairy Milk.

Challenges Faced

Managing challenging individuals was one of the main obstacles I had to face during my internship. Challenging individuals include people who are unwilling to provide you with the information needed and took certain situation for granted as assumptions were made. Being a newbie in the company, certain information are still not within my knowledge. Hence, when insufficient information was provided, it hinder by ability to work and required me to waste time figuring it out. In some situations, due to the amount of workload needed to be done by another employee, I was not able to receive the result from them by the stipulated deadline. This caused multiple delay which in the end I had to take search for an alternative to deliver the results. Although most of the time I manage to be resourceful in searching for alternatives, but in some cases the person that was difficult to manage was the only solution which I had to constantly try until I got what I needed.

Remembering a whole list of requirements at one go was a major challenge for me. I was never the detailed active listener which was a difficulty on a daily basis to fully capture the mandatories to a task within an instant. I often missed out on several key point that required me to fulfill in certain task. Even when jotting down information, I had to often double check to make sure I did not missed out anything. With this already part of my flaws, every time that I had to reconfirm certain matters with my manager, she would either said that it was already mentioned or just ignored me completely. This has cause me constantly struggle to figure out and remember what was required or mentioned. In the end, I realized that the only way to solve this was to take time to practice active listening by developing a habit of it.