Getting lunch, reading through scientific theories and watering the plants. Quite a weird combination of tasks, I would say. Though these were just some of the tasks that I had to do during my 5-month internship with The Social Handshake.
The Social Handshake is a start-up that is working on making payroll giving a standard practice in the Netherlands. There is a platform on which employees of companies that collaborate with The Social Handshake can register themselves for monthly deductions from their payroll, which are directly donated to a portfolio of charities of the employees’ choosing.
And I have had a role in this company for 5 months. I was the Customer Success Management and Communication intern. This might sound like a title and a half, but realistically my tasks were divided into two parts: Customer Success management (mostly operational tasks) and Communication (mostly theoretical).
The Customer Success Management part of my internship consisted of (mostly) operational tasks, such as creating communication packages for companies that started a collaboration with The Social Handshake. We had to inform their employees on what payroll giving was, the possible benefits, and the amount of extra impact that was possible when compared to regular month-to-month donating. Most of this information was communicated during a company event: The kick-off. This was a meeting where as many employees as possible were gathered, and introduced to payroll giving. Attending one of these kick-off presentations was very interesting: To see application of theory and sense employees their reactions was a lot more interesting than going through theories.
The communication part of my internship consisted of going through (a lot) of theories, but also the more creative side of communication. For example, coming up with ways in which it would be easier for employees to be introduced to LoonGift, or to improve user-friendliness, e.g., using NFC tags to share registration links with employees after a kick-off.
Even though the Communication part of my internship was more focused on theory, it also involved some practical elements. For example stakeholder communication. One of my tasks was to keep contact with the charities that were allied to The Social Handshake. This was interesting, since it required a firm but loving tone in every e-mail. This has taught me a lot about stakeholder communication.
It is said that an intern’s only task should be to learn. I hope this is true. Reflecting on the tasks that I had to perform, two main lessons come to mind. The first one being precision. I never thought about it before, but having someone who doesn’t work with precision in an operational environment is an absolute nightmare. Unfortunately, I did make my share of mistakes, and a lot of them came down to precision. Forgetting to put someone’s name in an e-mail is not something dramatic in the bigger picture, but it sucks when you look at the individual experience of the user.
The second big learning was confidence. At the beginning of my internship this was something that I lacked. There was a lot of things that I did not have any experience with. Definitely on an individual level. A great example of this was my research. Even though I had seen it happen, it was actually very difficult to actually get started, to identify the next steps and to actually take these steps. I did ask a lot of questions, but even about things I thought I knew, “just to be sure”. This lack in confidence got better over the months, but is still something I struggle with in a professional/academic environment.
Noah