Summer Internship at Future Group People Office – Neha Singh from ISM Dhanbad
Neha Gupta interned at Future Group People, Kolkata and shares her nostalgic experience. Neha is an MBA student at Indian School of Mines, Dhanbad. Read on and explore her interesting story.
I am Neha from Department of Management Studies, Indian School of Mines, Dhanbad which is more in news nowadays because of the solicitation for ISM to IIT. If I ring a bell, it was the month of March 2014 and we were having our Mid-Semester Exam when my summer internship company was cinched. I have few other options in hand but as we know that “Destiny is a name often given in retrospect to choices that had dramatic consequences”. And hence, I was selected as an intern at Future Group People Office, Kolkata, the retail giant of India. My area of discipline was Human Resource Management, and People office was the best place to be unearthed. Wait, if you are thinking the journey was like halcyon days of youth you amiss as it tangled with lots of toilsomeness. Sometimes it’s the journey that teaches you a lot about your destination and this was the case with my Internship experience.
Not many of us are lucky to leave for an internship on one’s own birthday, but I was one of them. Yes, it was 12th May 2014 when I have to leave my place and roll into an entirely new place. I left Dhanbad with four of my friends in which two of them were in the same company. The best part of the journey was celebrating my birthday in train and that too when your friends surprised you in a manner as if they don’t know it’s your birthday. The most irksome part of my experience was the house hunting which seems like an amaranthine task. Actually, it was the first-hand experience for us where we came to know that there is a world beyond our books and college life which requires placidity.
When we finally settle down with our shed but we were unaware of the distance of our office from that place. Though we asked from few of the people they said there is 24×7 bus facility which submerged on the very next day i.e. the day one of our internships. We were unable to get any direct transportation and I could hardly understand what the conductors of few buses were saying. Somehow we get a cab which was ready to drop us at our destination. We reached the Office by 9:30 am (luckily we left early) and the way I entered the door of the office I was fascinated by the creativity inside the office. There were logos of different brands arrayed in a crafty manner. We were told to wait for half an hour as our mentor was busy in some of her projects. Meanwhile, we were offered coffee and water but the news flashing on the television was vexing me as again I couldn’t understand a single colloquy.
Well after few more minutes we were called and our mentor introduced herself (Mrs S.Sarkar ) and vice-versa. As one of my friend’s name was also Neha so she told for her own convenience she will send one of us to the other mentor (Mrs S.Paul) so as to avoid any confusion and we all laughed. My mentor was very cool on the day one (Mrs S.Paul).She told us that her area of working is Recruitment and so we will be given our project topic within this area. We were handed over to Sabyasachi sir to give us a brief intro about the company, its functioning, subsidiaries etc. Throughout the journey, he was the one who fostered us.We were taken into the conference room where every information about the company, joining process, branches etc was shared. Apart from that, he used to know about the specialty of our place and that makes the session quite interesting. He arranged lunch for us and we had it together so that we get a chance to interact with him more. Now, this was our narrative session because soon after our lunch we were given task on whatever we have learned so far regarding ESIC scheme, gratuity act, Mediclaim and employee joining report.
Files of around 100 newly joined employees of Shreerampur project was given to us and we have to audit all these files. Wow, plenty of work to be done within 3 days. Well, I counterbalance myself by taking a cup of coffee and begin my work. It was well achieved in the very first day and on that note, we depart from the office by 6 pm taking the permission from our mentors. The next day we have to work on our earlier project but meanwhile, we also get our project topic i.e. Study of Recruitment Lifecycle and analyzing talent acquisition at Future Group People office. The topic was quite learning and a kind of live project as every day we meet new employees coming for the interview and joining. So we get in-hand information from our experience of two months at Future Group.
Summer Internship is not only about our work /project assigned to us. It is also about the working culture we observe, diverse people we interacted, new thing we learned and lot more. From punching to filing, from Xerox to interviewing, from decisions to solutions and finally from culture to creativity, I learned a blend of experiences which couldn’t be described completely in words. At times if we did a mistake our mentor caveat upon us but at the other time she become velvety. She only tries to show that the job of HR needs a lot of patience and precision. For that we should be on the beam. Our internship was not limited only to one mentor we were assigned different mentor to learn different things like Manpower planning, HR role directory, Talent acquisition, Job description, Job posting, employer branding etc. So I get an opportunity to work under different people and all were very supportive during the entire period of two months.
We had our office on Saturdays too, so we didn’t get much time to travel and explore Kolkata except Sunday. Shopping and visiting some of the historical places come under our weekend plan. Eating street food (bhel-puri, puchka etc) was a new thing for me but I tried that too. Kolkata, the city of joy really justify its tagline. People herein are very helping and ease of tension. I found this in my office too where employee use to work but remains poised.
As the days of completion of summer internship were approaching we were acclimated of everything i.e. from the crowd of the bus to the rush of Big Bazaar, from the summery to the stormy weather, from the balcony of our apartment to the idea garage of Future Group and I am going to miss all these things.
It’s amazing how many different roads we can take, but they all lead home. On this note, comes the last day at Future Group where we are leaving with lots of memories and good friends and people.
Some journeys take you farther from where you come from, but closer to where you belong. And we want to keep that journey as a memory forever.
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