My Business Placement Journey

Stephen Yu

Pre BA

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Applied for over 20 placements in 2nd year. Had assessment centre at BA, and interviews for others. Job offer for Head Office Industrial Placement at British

Airways!

Placement Students Open DayAugust 2015

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Great chance to meet other Business Placement students for the first time and find out which areas each of us were in!

Also a quick tour of Waterside (head office), Engineering hangars and Heathrow Terminal 5.

Induction weekSeptember 2015

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Opportunity to get to know each other. More info about BA and the aviation industry, as well as the placement

scheme. Also, a volunteer day at a local animal sanctuary which gave us the

chance to work in teams.

Day 1 in my teamSeptember 2015

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I met my Performance team and broader Organisational Effectiveness team and found out more about what the next 11 months had in store for me.

Competency Framework pilotOctober 2015

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This pilot gave people information and tried to market a taster held in the HR department for the Competency Framework in the build up to the launch.

It’s main purpose was to see how it went down with colleagues and an opportunity for questions as well to give us further guidance on what we can do to improve in preparation to the launch.

New York… twice!October/November 2015

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It’s not everyday you get a call from

your manager asking you to drop

plans and go to New York tomorrow…

I took the opportunity and packed my

bags, met two colleagues from my

team at Heathrow T5 the next day and

we were off.The guys based in 2 Park Avenue were impressed with the work I done so I was invited back to New York a couple of weeks later!

October 2015 – empire state

November 2015 – Times Square

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Team away day - WindsorNovember 2015

Straight after New York, its fair to say I was slightly jet lagged… However, I soldiered on and got to my team’s away day meeting in Windsor. At this away day, we were lucky enough to be joined by a colleague from the Global Learning Academy who delivered a brilliant session on Myers Briggs which gave us huge insight to how each of us work best.

Another great surprise for my birthday when I came back in the room was a lovely home made birthday cake from my team, a creative poem and some presents! What a worthwhile trip home to be greeted by such a great team.

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First few big projects – related to the Competency Framework LaunchDecember 2015

I worked very closely with the IT delivery team for them to create a development form.

This meant briefing the IT team, regular progress meetings and testing all the way through to launching the forms live on the Intranet pages (see below).

1- Competency development form:

I worked very closely with the Internal Communications team who created an Intranet site for all the Competency Framework documents to sit on.

From briefing (showing what we wanted and how we wanted the site to look) to regular updates, testing and then analytics of the pages once launched.

2- Competency Framework Intranet pages:

3- Manager briefing sessions I was required to project manage briefing sessions for over 1000

managers across BA, and work closely with HR Business Partners to best arrange their areas.

The sessions were arranged to communicate and an opportunity for people to ask questions about the Competency Framework.

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Team away day at LinkedIn head officeDecember 2015

One of our team away days was in the LinkedIn head office and gave us a great insight into what they do and how we can benefit from using LinkedIn.

We were also privileged enough to have received the delivery of ‘How to build a great LinkedIn profile’ from BA’s LinkedIn rep.

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Graduate Christmas ballDecember 2015

Being part of the graduate community, a great opportunity to network with the other Business Placement Students and Leaders for Business (LfB) Graduates on a night out in Oxford Street, London.

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Manager on maternity leave and colleague leaving January/February 2016

At the end of January, my manager, Dawn, went on maternity leave and this was celebrated with various gifts for her and her new-born ‘Agatha’.

In early February, it was time to say goodbye to my close colleague Rachel who was off to the AA (car company).

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Core competency framework live!February 2016

The team’s hard work was all launched on the 8th February 2016!This was a great moment where all the content and hard work we had put into the framework went live and colleagues finally knew about it; as an article went in BA’s company magazine featuring news around the airline and keeping colleagues updated.

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Team away day – Flight simulators!February 2016

The energiser for our away day was on flight sims which gave us the chance to partner for the simulators which was a great experience!

The rest of the day was very strategic thinking and a typical away day thinking about the team’s priorities for upcoming months.

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Assistance at Business Placement assessment centreFebruary 2016

In February, I had the opportunity to help out at the next intake of Placement students assessment centre group activities.

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Learnt how to use Ascend for Performance from admin and user perspectiveFebruary/March 2016

Because Rachel left BA, we lost our expertise in Ascend for Performance.I picked this up from Rachel before she left and mainly learned the system on-the-job, which was a daunting but exciting experience.I then dealt with queries, upskilling and close work with our support client (Aasonn) to create and develop new and improved Performance Management forms.

Upskill new Performance Management executive in AscendMarch 2016

I needed to train and upskill Rachel’s replacement, which meant a few sessions teaching how to use the system from admin and end user perspective. This also meant talking through the process and what we were trying to achieve with Ascend.

Add pictures of this if available – talking through Ascend with Karen – move to previous slide

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Volunteering – Speed Networking for 6th Form/College studentsApril 2016

As part of my placement, I was encouraged to get involved in as much volunteering and shadowing as I could.This was a great opportunity to share my experiences of placement and work-life at BA for potential future employees.It also gave me a chance to give something back to BA.

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Development day - presentationApril 2016

Every quarter, the placement students would and have a development day session based on specific topics; this one was feedback.

This meant getting into groups of 3 and presenting about our placement year and the skills we have developed.

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Shadow a Team Manager in Terminal 3May 2016

I took the opportunity when my colleague said she knew someone in Heathrow Terminal 3 to be able to shadow them for a shift.This was a valuable experience for me to find out more about what the operational side of BA looked like and was great to see what Keith does in his role. I got involved in some customer service and saw how different it is to manage people in the terminal and effects it can have on the organisation.

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Confidence to propose suggestions on Intranet pagesApril/May 2016

In April, I started putting together a plan as to how we were going to tackle the Performance Management Intranet pages in terms of improving and updating the pages.

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Prague!June 2016

One of the perks at BA being staff travel, which gave myself and 3 friends from our placement the opportunity to get to Prague on a hotline flight.

A great trip away which concluded placement in style!

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FlyHost shift – Terminal 5July 2016

Whilst based at head office there is also the opportunity to get involved to help the operational side of things too.

During the first week of the holidays, colleagues in T5 were struggling with implementing a new system whilst dealing with large amounts of customers.

Therefore I volunteered to help out for a shift in the first week of summer which gave me exposure to real issues in the terminals which I had to deliver quality customer service to assist in the best way possible and support the operation.

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UCAS day at Douay Martyrs RC School – mock interviews/presentingJuly 2016 Another volunteer opportunity I

was grateful to help out at was mock interview day and presentations at Douay Martyrs School. This was a special moment not only to represent the brand, but also because it was my old sixth form!

As part of the year 12’s UCAS day, myself and Vicky spoke to them and gave them an insight into university life, life at BA on a scheme and general Q&A’s they had.

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Campus ambassador offer!July 2016

After presenting to a mock panel of students about the schemes on offer, I received an offer to be an ambassador in my final year of studies to represent British Airways around campus and promote the schemes on offer.

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Final days at British AirwaysAugust 2016

My team had arranged a nice send off for me on my last day, with some gifts, balloons and a great poem from our resident poet Sara.

A really great send off from a great team!