Finishing Up at E3S: Final Thoughts/Reflections
As I complete my internship, I’d like to reflect on my experience as a whole. I learned so much this summer not only about integration, internal talent management, and rebranding but also what it feels like to be an integral part of a company. About how it feels for people to trust your work ethic, rely on you for deadlines, and actually take your opinions and ideas into account. It was so beyond satisfying to meet with my supervisors and have them tell me what an impact all the work I did made on the company this summer, and following that offer me a position after graduation!!! I feel incredibly accomplished and lucky to have had this opportunity, especially under the circumstances of this summer.
For future reference, I would like to elaborate on some of the projects I assisted with over the past ten and a half weeks. The area I most helped out with was the Integration department, as E3S acquired five other companies in the past year or so, and two companies in the past couple months so it was a really busy and exciting time in the company for me to join and participate in the efforts to merge all these companies under one umbrella company. This work involved managing all the other departments in giving and receiving information with the new companies, facilitating meetings between the two, aligning policies, making decisions, and cleaning up databases to make room for new items. I had no idea the integration of a company required so much attention to detail, so many steps, all the while ensuring that everything and everyone in the companies are accounted for. All the while, rebranding efforts required assistance in building tracking programs to account for all the internal and external documents, templates, comms, etc that needed to be archived or transferred over. I was lucky enough to sit in on the rebranding meetings where the new name was being decided, an incredibly detailed and long process that was so interesting. They spent hours determining how many syllables should be in the name, the sound and feel, spelling, etc, as well as the look and feel of the new logo and color scheme. It was fascinating. I’m so excited to see how the new unified name/company structure positively affects the five companies.
E3S’s culture is one that is very attractive to me as a student coming out of school. I helped run the internal transfer program, one that encourages employees to develop their careers by looking for new projects and opportunities within the company rather than outside. It was clear how accessible new opportunities are for everyone, allowing one to take advantage of so many professional development opportunities and have a very fluid career path. The internal talent management team works very hard to build career paths for each one of the company’s employees, and monitor their “fit” and overall happiness in their career. The flat structure of the company is very evident in that I never felt intimidated about reaching out to supervisors and others throughout the company at any time; everyone is on a level playing field.
One thing that really stood out was the Leadership Development program that E3S is currently building. I was lucky enough to assist my supervisor in making suggestions using my past leadership experience and my studies. It is clear how much the current leaders of the company care about the succession of leadership in the company, as well as the professional development desires of various individuals.