Post-Internship

Question: What did you do to improve your capabilities in the skill and knowledge areas required for the role? Describe at least one activity in which the training you participated in improved your understanding of the skills/knowledge required for the role? Answer: Executive summary In this report I am going to summarize my experience after my internship from the company Townshed and Associates. I will include a small introduction of the company, a industry analysis, about the organization, the core business, business location, brand image, my role as an intern in this company, the primary task and projects which will be handled by me. In this report I will also detail the task and projects assigned to me, my training, theories I have learnt throughout the internship, professional development, self-management skills, effective communication capabilities, and problem solving skills. Later in this report I will also highlight the major outcomes, its influence on my career development and on learning and also completed with a structured conclusion of my experiences. The Internship 1 Introduction Internship is the most important phase for any students before stepping into the real professional world. Therefore, through this report, a detailed overview of the companys account will be demonstrated along with the key leanings and the key experiences gained from the internship. On the other hand, the last portion of the report will demonstrate the evaluation from the supervisor and about the influence of the internship on the future career aspects. 2 Detailed Accounts of Townshed and Associates 2.1 Industry Analysis According to Brown et al. (2008) the real estate industry was one of the most lucrative investment areas in the Australia. However, the recession of 2008 and the recent restriction in the lending rate have influenced the sluggish growth of the real estate sector (Brown, Schwann and Scott, 2008). According to Biggs (2011) the absurd market pricing in the Melbourne and Sydney has created a bubble within the sector. In recent scenario it has been observed that the lending rate has touched the highest point compared with the lending rate of 1991 (Trivedi, 2015). However, according to the report by Trivedi (2015) has shown that the property prices majorly the residential property prices have grown up to 12.40% on the other hand the value of the industrial properties has increased by 7.6% (Trivedi, 2015). However, on an average in the year 2014 overall the industry has experienced a de-growth of 7.9% (Trivedi, 2015). According to Ofaircheallaigh (2013) this de-growth in the industry is a global phenomenon (O'Faircheallaigh, 2013). According to a current study by Mori (2014) the Asian major china has also experienced an overall 4.30% decline in the real estate market (Mori, 2014). According to Trivedi (2015), the growth of the real estate market will experience declining growth in 2015. The major issue is that the affordability of the properties especially in the major cities like: Melbourne and Sydney. 2.2 The Organization Townshed and Associates started its journey from 2008. The company came into the real estate business after spending a five very successful years in the family boutique business. The main philosophy of the business is that to develop such a kind of housing that will provide full satisfaction to its esteemed clients (Hua, 2011). The company has developed the core team very wisely. They have developed small teams for each of the department with both experiences and the young peoples. This has helped the company to deliver the best in class interior and exterior to its clients (Townsend-associates.com, 2015). 2.3 Core Business The main business of this company is the boutique for the families. This business has given a very positive visibility for the company in the Australia (Kaya and Williams, 2005). This visibility has helped the company to expand their business in the real-estate segment. The main motto of the company is to provide 100% satisfaction to the clients (Townsend-associates.com, 2015). 2.4 Business Location This company operates form the location Kinross central shopping centre that is located in Selkirk and Connolly Drive in Australia (Townsend-associates.com, 2015). 2.5 Brand Image (National International) The company is operating within the country only (Spence, 2014). The past success and reputation in the family boutique business has helped them to establish and maintain the strong brand image of the company. The brand image of the company has increased due to its membership in the Reiwa (Townsend-associates.com, 2015). 3 The Role In this company, I majorly worked for the Administration, Accounting Administration, Tax (Personal Tax and Company Tax), quick book and payroll. I was here appointed as a junior operation executive during the time of my internship. In these sections, my prime role was to maintain the primary processes for all these departments through maintaining a regular workflow logbook. 4 Primary Task and the Projects In the, company my primary task was to maintain and ensure the smooth work process within the mentioned departments (Vogel, 2007). Other than this, the other primary task was to maintain synchronization between the administration department, accounting department and the payroll department. However, the secondary task was to maintain and prepare a daily basis report about the flow of work between the mentioned departments. However, during my internship I have participated in the implementation of the ICT within these departments. My prime role within this project was that to analyze the effectiveness of implementing ICT within the mentioned departments. The other project where I have participated during the tenure of my internship is that the simplification of the associated processes through implementing a single window information section. 4.1 Detailed description of the Task and Projects I majorly worked within the following mentioned working areas: Personal tax Company tax Quick book Payroll Accounting Administration General Administration In the tax areas, my prime job role was to provide the first line of support to the queries coming from the corresponding clients and the departments. In this supporting process my key focus areas was to provide detailed systematic process assistance through both telephonic and via e-main process. My other responsibility within these segments was to keep a record of each communication through developing a separate report for each of the queries and solutions provided to those queries. In the payroll segment, my job was to provide detailed level information to the human resource department for the preparation of the payrolls and associate jobs for each employee. The other job in this segment was to update the information received from the human resource department and the administrative department. In the accounting and general administration my key responsibility was to deliver the required information asked by the various departments and clients. I used to escalate the different queries to the concern departments and resend the replies to the concern departments or clients. In the general administration, my prime job responsibility was to maintain the administrative process and to maintain the synchronization within the departments. While maintaining the synchronization my prime responsibility was to maintain the work log in which the daily progress of the respective jobs needs to be logged. Through this workflow process, I have learnt about the intra organizational synchronization. 5 Provided Training The training was provided to maintain the daily work log and to prepare the daily report through collecting the data from the respective departments. On the other hand, the other training was provided to provide the information about the different processes about the different taxation and handling of the different taxations. This training helped me to know about the different anomalies of the company tax and the personal taxes and their corresponding processes. The other thing what this training helped me is to understand wide ranges of the processes to calculate the personal and the professional tax. However, a special training was provided to maintain the payroll for the internal employees and to handle the queries from them. While this training was given, a detailed learning-material was provided on the labour law and companies act. This helped me to learn about the different legal aspects of the employment, the dos, and donts from the company point. 5.1 Description of One Activity The training activity on the payroll has helped me to develop my knowledge in the companies act and labour law. 6 General Discussions on the Theory Learnt As my internship was focused more on taxation, accounting and administration, I have come across different theories associated with these areas. I have obtained practical experiences and to understand those practical aspects I should definitely have basic knowledge in theories. I have learnt the concept of hidden taxes, voluntary taxes, and diverted taxes. I have also learnt the concept of business equity, accounting equation, debit, credit and many other things. I have worked as an intern in this organization and apart from my mentor I have also got assistance from other internal employees. While understanding those basic theories I have correlated those theories with my practical experiences. Therefore, the work experiences have helped me to understand the significance of those theories and their applications in practical life. 7 Assessment on the professional development The capacity of professional development assessment has helped me immensely to boost my workplace performances. I had little knowledge regarding a workplace or what actually it means by being professional prior I have joined this organization. Through experienced based learning and communication I have learnt different factors that are associated with professionalism. To elaborate the extent of my professional development it will be justified to mention that I worked in personal tax, company tax, payroll, quick book, finance, accounting administration, spread sheet, data entry, and basic documentation and so on. After completion of my internship I have gained a concrete and deep understanding about these areas. I have obtained practical knowledge and confidence on these subjects. I have joined here as an intern, but my aim was to prove myself capable enough to join this company as a permanent and full time employee. I was immensely happy that with this single internship I have gained loads of productive knowledge and experience in my life. This will definitely help me in my future, whether I join this company or any other company. While comparing my initial experience with current experience I have found out a bif difference between my learning. I always preferred experience based learning which was entirely not possible to obtain from the class environment and the internship in this company has helped me to achieve the experience based learning in a very good way. 7.1 Effective Communication Effective communication is an important thing which is required for daily life. Communication can be a complicated process. The probability of conveying incorrect messages can take place in any type of communication whether it is an organization or any other type of sectors. Hence the communicators need to be well aware of the fundamental components of the communication process. Fail in maintaining communication can cause negative results. In this organization when I was undertaking internship, I have come across many people from different part of this world. People have their own way of communication. Being in an organization it is my responsibility to understand the way of their communication. I have understood the fact that people always do not have the patience to keep their mental stress away because of work pressure, so if someone ever communicated with me in a wrong way, I have maintained my patience and tried to sort out the matter. From my mentor and senior other internal pe rsonnel, I have learnt more efficient communication. This means I understood the importance of effective communication, but also it is an important factor insider an organization that communication in a profession requires much more efficiencies. This I have learnt from experiences while working in the company. I was not that aware of formal communication, as this is obvious because prior I have no experience on any kind of professional environment. But while started working as an intern I have seen how people communicating with each other regarding any project or task and started gaining experience on professional communication. 7.2 Problem Solving Effective skills in problem solving help professionals to identify severity of the complications; analyze problems and illustrate the impact of optional solutions (Levin, 2007). Training in workplace generally structured to improve problem solving capabilities assists personnel to perform more effectively with customers, colleagues, vendors and partners. Trained employees learn to apply accessible resources to determine complications in a productive manner. Moreover, the tradition reaching consents by observing complications from professional perspective and not from a personal perspective. Different training games for example group discussion or brain storming activities prepare the personnel for workplace environments. In Townshed and associates I have gained experience on problem solving along with my internship courses. At the end of each week, my mentor use to arrange a brain storming session or group discussion, where we use to discuss about the project we have already worked o n for that week. Few internal personnel also use to join our group that helped me immensely in terms of gaining experience. Problem solving skills include identification of a problem, proposing solutions, evaluating options and solution implementation; which I like the most while working in this organization that, the solutions offered by me were also accepted and appreciated by my mentor and other seniors. I have also assisted by the internal personnel where I was wrong. 7.3 Self-management The improvements of self management capacities are one of the best management practices for the productive personnel (Gabriel, 2014). While organizations are inclined to expend huge amount of energy and money to offer their personnel with specific training and self management capacities, individual personnel can personally arrange surveys associated with self-management to describe whether the employee has the needed skill set. In Townshed and associates my mentors along with the HR department have arranged short trainings in self management. This program includes self resistance, problem solving, communication, time management, memory and physical activity. I am little poor in case of time management. This is because I have a habit of going through a single task frequently before submission unless I reach to a satisfactory point. This might make the process more time consuming and then I use to get delayed. This problem has been sorted out by my mentor, who has strongly developed ti me management skill inside me. Generating expected results within a time frame verifies the accomplishment of the effort. My mentor has made me learn that time management is considered as an essential self management capacity which makes a worker to become more productive for an organization. Initially I felt suffocated because of assigned project pressure but slowly learnt how to efficiently manage time in order to deal with the work pressure. 8 Key Outcomes Highlighting those A right internship is an extremely significant step in the initial search for a rewarding career. It provides a wonderful opportunity for a hands-on learning in this field of knowledge. There are a number of positive outcomes of doing an appropriate internship. Firstly, we get an opportunity to work in a proper job environment where one can apply the theories and skills that has been learnt at the universities and this assist a lot in the personal development. Every university prepares the students to be a thorough professional and make the best possible contribution for the achievement of goals and objectives on which we work on. Hence internships give us this opportunity to show case our talents. Sometimes during the internship I also had to do some not so significant work such as filling envelopes or photocopying but such work was extremely little and mostly done to meet deadlines and encourage public relations. While summing up the key outcomes this internship can be said to have assisted in an overall development of me as an individual in the aspects of career, skill and personality. Development of career since it gave a knowledge of position for pursuing a particular career option. Development of skill as it provided an understanding of the technical skills and knowledge of the workplace and development of personality as it assisted me in decision making and critical thinking to increase my confidence and self-esteem. 9 Supervisors Evaluation I was extremely fortunate to be guided by a supervisor who has given me a number of opportunities during the internship. He was competent enough to understand the job as well as the work that I was doing and helped me with the problems. He has been available whenever I needed him. He always had a positive attitude and always encouraged all the interns and made the working environment enjoyable. When required he also shared the work load and assisted us in the work when we got stuck with the activities. Further he also had a very high standard of performance of the work and expected each one to his or her very best. When it is appropriate he also delegated duties and responsibilities giving us a chance to initiate taking responsibilities in the area of work. The supervisor also practices good customer service and also regularly solicits and asks everyone about their opinion on improving the working environment in the workplace. He always provided proper and timely feedback for all the work that I did during the internship. He was also extremely professional at work and left no opportunity to rebuke us when the work done was not up to the mark. He always maintains confidentiality at work and encourages respect for all employees. Hence looking at the above features it can be stated that the supervisor was good for the internship. 10 Influence on the career direction Firstly I would like to state that it is never too late to develop yourself into such a professional that you always aspired to become. This internship helped me a great deal primarily to narrow my choice of job. After this internship I have realised my potential as a worker. I have understood that I can perform at a much higher level than I had imagined. Since presently I had the opportunity to work as an intern I got the strength to observe the broader picture and see the work of other employees. As an intern I had the opportunity to contribute to the company for which I was working and it also broadened my horizon on work and learn about life. This internship will hopefully also give me a good network of connections that would help me to find a good job after education is completed. During the internship I worked with global clients and this helped me to expand my network of connections. This internship influenced my future plans and made me interested in companies and jobs in this area. This experience helped me analyse what kind of work best suited me and in what kind of job I would be satisfied in. Internships are very important to make students come in terms with real working environment. Here students also get the chance to share and gain various knowledge and experiences. 11 Influence of internship on learning Internship programmes are extremely helpful for any student who is about to venture into the professional world. It gives an idea of the working environment for the students. For internships I had the opportunity to work in a number of different areas to increase my knowledge and skill in this field. I had worked in the area of personal tax, company tax, quick book and payrollduring my internship. Working in this sector helped me in learning quite a lot of new things such as a vivid account of the different tax rates and slabs, the working of the computation of the tax rates. I had further worked in the area of accounting, administration and finance and even these works have been extremely helpful to me. While working on the accounting and finance departments the work included payrolls, collection and payment of cash and keeping track of various orders. Some other work that I have done during my internship is preparing basic documentation, responding to phone call enquiries, differen t spread sheet and data entry. While attending the quick book training session I had the opportunity to know these demanding and exciting challenges of this profession. 12 Conclusions This entire experience of the internship has been very good for my career. Throughout this internship I not only got the opportunity to learn and showcase my knowledge and skills in my area of expertise but I also got a level of experience that was totally new in my life. This opportunity helped me to develop my skills and personality along with giving me the right career path to follow in future. However, it should also be noted that during the internship my work was well appreciated by the superior and hence this construes that my work was of a lot of help for the company as well. References BIGGS, A. (2011). An Options Pricing Method for Calculating the Market Price of Public Sector Pension Liabilities.Public Budgeting Finance, 31(3), pp.94-118. Brown, R., Schwann, G. and Scott, C. (2008). 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