Go Time

We have a date for our intern group final presentation! A week from Wednesday, us interns will be presenting our crisis management plan to the executives. The project is a long time in the making and it will be very rewarding to present to the top executives of the company. It's amazing to think back to when we were assigned this project and how lost we initially all felt. At that time we all barely knew each other, and had no idea where this project would take us. Now, we have become one cohesive unit and have created a thorough plan that I'm excited to present. The Berea interns will be traveling to Elyria one more time to practice later in the week. We'll be able to fine tune our presentation one last time before it's game day. This group intern project has been such a great experience for me over the last several weeks. I no doubt will have great experience to rely upon during my future job hunt, which is exactly what I wanted out of an internship.
Along with the Crises Management plan I putting together a report and making a recommendation for the company regarding their processing service levels. I really enjoy the processing of taking data, analyzing it, and making a decision based off of the analysis. ETC has provided me with several opportunities to do this throughout the summer which makes me a very happy intern.

Week 9

Week 9 ended on Friday. Time is flying by! I cannot believe that I will only be here at ETC for 3 more weeks!
Last week was busy with various tasks for the accounting department including comparing published financials with those generated with FRx. In addition, I have been reviewing and documenting various services agreements.

In addition to that, the other interns and I have been practicing a lot for our group presentation. Our presentation date will be next Wednesday, July 27! I know that we will be ready and give a great presentation to the executives.

This week, my mentor Loretta will be on vacation. While she is gone I will be doing some of her day to day tasks including the Stratification Report which is completed every morning. I will be putting this report together for both ETC and finishing the report for Sterling Trust. I'm glad that I am able to help out while she is gone!

Well, back to work!

My Projects

As our internship at Equity Trust Company comes to an end, I am tying up loose ends on all of my projects. Before the interns depart, they will present to the executive team the projects they have worked on throughout the summer. In order to prepare myself for final presentations, I must finalize all of my projects. In particular, I am finishing revisions on my social media content schedule and I am formulating two proposals. The first proposal is a new hire on-boarding package, and the second a culture project.

This internship has been extremely beneficial because I am sharpening many skills and developing new ones. I have made very few formal proposals in my lifetime so it is great to be able to practice this skill. I am so glad I've had the opportunity to grow at Equity Trust.

Network and Take Advantage of Your Resources

This being my 9th week here as an intern at Equity Trust, I've come to the realization through my various projects that it's so important and really pays off in the long run to set plans and due dates as soon as a project is being implemented. It takes both time and often preliminary research, but having something to look back on and reference for minor details makes everything easier. Some people might find project plans tedious but I actually enjoy putting them together and keeping up-to-date with them. This has lead me to an interest in some sort of project planning. Although I've already met with my mentor to talk about her role in the marketing department as a project specialist, I decided to seek out another employee here at ETC. I had the opportunity to meet with the project manager in our ETS (Equity Technical Services) department. Still having one more year of college, it's difficult to fully know yet specifically what I want to do after graduation. But he provided me with a lot of valuable information from his professional experiences that I wouldn't be able to fully understand from an ordinary job description. The employees here are always willing to help others out and the interns are never excluded from this. They want us to take advantage of the resources provided to us, and I really value this.

Moving Along!

This week I found that I am really starting to get a hang of everything that I've been doing over these last 9 weeks! Things are beginning to come much easier and I am able to do a lot more things by myself. At the same time, my internship is coming to a close with only 3 more weeks left. I cannot believe how fast time has flown by!

FRx was used to publish statements this month. We did find a few kinks that I had to fix, but now I think that everything is going to go very smoothly!
In addition, I was able to code and post all the credit card entries this month by myself. Last month I was having some issues and had to ask a lot of questions. I was happy that everything worked out easily this month!
I also have posted June data to our new unit accounts that I helped set up!

Looking back at all of the things I have gained experience in throughout this internship, I am so thankful that I am with Equity Trust Company!

Mid-Year Survey

As the Human Resources intern, I have been working in all areas of the HR department. Last week, I was working heavily to recruit for positions in our new Sioux Falls location. This week, I am helping prepare our 2011 Mid-Year Survey.

Equity Trust sends out surveys bi-annually to their employees. Our employees are very important to us, so it is vital to conduct surveys twice a year to see how they are doing. I have been working closely with our HR Generalist, Carly, to formulate questions for our survey. As a starting point, we are reviewing the results from the 2010 survey and benchmarking from there. We have identified areas of opportunity to focus on, as well.

Our goal is to make Equity Trust the number one place to work! We can achieve this by listening to our employees.

Daily Line-Up

Every day at ETC each department gets together to go over the "Daily Line-Up". The Daily Line-Up is document created each day providing information on company news, birthdays, anniversaries, fun facts, and highlights an employee exemplifying a company core value. This is a fun way to bring employees together and have everybody on the same page for the day. Although all of us interns have departments, none of us had ever taken part in a Daily Line-Up. Being the highly motivated employees that we are, we took it upon ourselves to create our own intern Daily Line-Up. Each day, at 9:30 the Elyria interns gather at my desk, read through the Daily-Line-Up, and go over what we want to get done for our project. This has been a fun addition to the work day that has brought all of us interns closer together. The other day, we were fortunate enough to have the Berea interns join us for the day and take part in our Daily Line-Up. It was great to feel like one big family.
The intern project is basically ready to go, we are just putting finishing touches on our presentation and waiting to get the final date of when we actually present. On my own, I am working on a report that will help ETC make a decision regarding the future of their fees that they charge customers. Along with that, I am also creating a survey to send clients to gauge their interest in selecting their service level. These are both interesting projects that will hopefully help the company make some changes for the better.