Happy Friday!

I got a lot of things accomplished today here at ETC. I was able to generate a balance sheet using our new FRx system (I was very excited!), enter invoices to pay some of our bills, print out the checks for the invoices, and I finished my first draft for one of my projects. Along with that, I have been researching for our intern project, which is to create a Crisis Management plan. I am looking forward to working with all the interns and hopefully developing a plan that ETC can use after our time here this summer is over. As our project manager Joe said, this is a great chance for us to make our mark at ETC!

Have a great weekend everyone :)

Working Together

I can honestly say I leave work every single day having learned something new that I know will benefit me even after my internship ends in August. In addition to the intern meeting we had yesterday afternoon that Ryan and Lisa mentioned, my mentor invites me to several other meetings throughout the week. I've been to ones with both ETC and Sterling sales, as well as with IT and Client Services. Being a business student in college, I knew the various group projects professors assign would somehow be beneficial. Finally working for a company and seeing how employees interact both within and across departments truly gives me perspective on this. Not only is it important for individual employees to offer their expertise, but they also need to be skilled in communication, time management, and taking the initiative to follow up with team members. Having the opportunity to sit in on these meetings gives me insight into daily operations that have the ultimate goal of producing satisfaction for our clients.

Learning Something New Every Day

This week has been going great so far, but I have definitely been busy! I am learning something new everyday, whether it be general accounting knowledge, things about ETC, or more recently, software! I have learned so many new programs already such as Quickbooks, GP Dynamics, FRx, and of course, Excel. I use Excel everyday for many things and my manager has been teaching me new tricks along the way. It's crazy how many things Excel can do for you to make your life easier.

I am still loving the corporate culture here at ETC. There is so much planned for all the interns to do this summer including participating in Cleveland Corporate Challenge (I will be doing minigolf!), Relay for Life (our team is 'Marching for Madagascar), a trip to Cedar Point, and so much more. There is a great sense of community at this company.

Also throughout this week, I have got to know my fellow interns more. We all get along great and it's really nice to be able to go over and visit them throughout the day or eat lunch with them in the afternoon.

I am looking forward to the rest of my summer here at ETC :)

Intern Project

This afternoon all 5 interns met to receive information about our summer long intern project. Our project is to develop a crisis management plan for Equity Trust Company in case of an emergency. The end result will be presented to the management staff at ETC during week 9 of our internship. This is a really exciting opportunity to be part of a team that will develop an important procedure for ETC. Our project manager has given us the freedom to assign ourselves roles, schedule meetings, and complete the project. I am excited to begin working with all the interns because we have skills from all areas to bring to the table. I have confidence we will really produce something great!

Flying By

These last few days have been flying by, I can't believe week two is almost over. Since I last wrote I have been very busy completing various mini projects. I started out researching our competitors, looking for fees or services that ETC could adopt to increase revenue. Also since one of ETC's core values is "The Client is Our Ultimate Boss", I spent time researching the top customer service companies and why they are regarded so highly. I crafted a report with suggestions for ETC to look into to increase their customer satisfaction. I was excited to complete projects where my results might actually be used to make the company better. It is that reason that I'm looking forward to completing my major project which is to try and improve the return mail process here at ETC. Right now ETC is getting flooded with return mail which costs the company money and also takes a great deal of time to work through. The project will be very challenging but hopefully upon completion of this project I'll be able to say that I helped save the company some money. Besides being satisfied with the work I have been doing, I continue to be thrilled about the people here at ETC. It makes work so much more enjoyable when you are around people who enjoy their job. Everyone works very hard but still is able to keep a positive, upbeat attitude. Although I've only been here a week and a half, I'm starting to feel at home. My mentor and manager have been nothing but helpful and friendly to me which makes it much easier to wake up and go to work in the morning. All of us interns have a meeting this afternoon regarding our group project. It should be fun interacting with everyone again and the meeting should give us more insight on what other great challenges we'll face this summer.

busy, busy

This week has been flying by. I can't believe it is already over half way done! I've been adding items on to my social media plan and finalizing dates. I have also started adding some upcoming webinars on our ETC facebook fan page so be sure to check them out! After a couple of training meetings this week, I am ready to start on my second project, which involves organizing our e-Library and make things easier to find :)

Junior Achievement

Today Equity Trust Company partnered with Junior Achievement to teach for a day at Franklin Elementary School in Elyria. Roughy 15 ETC employees spent their morning teaching 1st-5th graders the importance of business in society. I taught a 1st grade class and we discussed family. Students also learned about the difference between a need and a want. I now have a greater appreciation for teachers because I am tired! It was so nice to give back to the community and ETC hopes to form a lasting partnership with Franklin Elementary and Junior Achievement.

This week has been pretty great thus far! Monday was my birthday :) and everyone made sure to tell me happy birthday and Melva left me a nice birthday message! Yesterday was my last day of training in the Berea office and I am now working on the NPS survey results to view responses and comments from our customers and find ways to make sure everyone loves us! ;)

Go Team ETC!

Right now I'm working on registering ETC for the Cleveland Corporate Challenge! For those of you that don't know what this is, it is a 13 event athletic competition against other companies in Northeast Ohio. My job is to get everyone registered for the event and most importantly, EXCITED! The Cleveland Corporate Challenge will allow ETC to get our name out in the community while having fun! After I register ETC the next step is to gather team captains. My HR mentors and I will have a captains meeting to discuss our next moves before the competition starts in June. I have a lot of planning ahead of me, but I am very excited for the games to begin!

First Week Is Going Great!

My first week as the Accounting Intern here at ETC has been great so far! During orientation on Monday, all the interns were able to learn A LOT about the company and each other. We also learned our way around the office and were able to meet other employees here at ETC. Everyone has been so friendly and helpful here, so it made the transition a lot easier! One of ETC's core values is "Welcome Home", as they are not only a business, but a family. Ever since I first stepped in the door, I have felt like I am part of the ETC family!

So far during my first week, I have already learned a lot of new things by getting hands on experience. I have read through invoices, began working on a Streamline project which will help ETC prepare more timely financial results by seeing what are expenses reoccur from month to month, and have also started learning a new report writer program. I can already tell that I will be learning a lot during my summer here!

Training Days

Being the operations intern here at ETC, they felt it would be a good idea for me to take part in a two day training class with other operations employees. It turned out not to be a good idea, but instead it was a great one! The two day training gave me an overview of the work flow here at ETC and gave me a basic understanding of all the different accounts ETC can open and transactions we can process. The information was a little overwhelming at times but by going through the course I feel that I have somewhat of a grasp on what exactly goes on here at ETC. It was also a great experience to be in the training with employees who do the operations day in and day out, and to hear their stories and their opinions on what goes on here at ETC. Already today, two of my co-workers who were in training with me have stopped by my cube to say hi, which is something that I appreciate greatly as a new employee. Today, I will be going over my project plan with my mentor and Friday she plans to have me shadow different departments in operations. So far, it has been a very enjoyable experience and I'm excited to see what the rest of the summer holds for me here at ETC.

Getting To Know My Department

As the marketing intern, I started my first day at the Berea office on Tuesday. I have really enjoyed meeting a lot of the employees at both the Elyria office and the Berea office. Everyone is so nice and friendly and willing to offer their help to the interns. Since Wednesday I started shadowing my co-workers in the marketing department, and I'm beginning to gain a better understanding of the specific jobs that everyone has. They all seem interesting and are definitely helping me to understand the company better as a whole. I have a couple of preliminary meetings to get me started on my one of my individual projects - with ETC's social media sites. Leisa also has a project similiar to this, but hers deals more with the HR and recruiting end of things. I'm excited to dive more into my proejcts next week!

Research Research Research

Hi everyone, I hope everyone is having a good first week! I know I love my job so far! I currently have been working on a marketing research project with Amanda looking for new ways to market and recruit employee's to decrease the turnover rate and increase the retention rate and company loyalty specifically for Sales. So, if anyone is looking for me, ill be one on the phone. :)

The First Week

This is my first week as the HR intern here at Equity Trust Company. I am one of five interns this summer at ETC! Our first day was orientation and we learned all about the history of the company. For lunch we got to go out with the HR team and the interns. It was great to get to know everyone and chat at lunch. We had 7 girls and 1 boy at lunch- but Ryan handled our chick flick conversations well. Good work Ryan. Currently I'm working on the Facebook, Twitter, and other social media initiatives at ETC. If you are not a fan or following us yet, do it now!