Week 1: Orientation and Organizational Culture Overview
Last week I began my internship as a General Management Corporate Intern with Aetna and CVS Health. I am also finally settled into my apartment Chicago with one of my roommates from Richmond. Between starting my first internship and truly living on my own for the first time, there are lots of big yet exciting changes happening. It definitely feels good to finally have a routine again. Beside some initial hesitations, all of my Chicago and CVS/Aetna experiences have reassured me that I made the right decision to work in and explore a new city.
I initially found the CVS General Management Internship Program on Spider Connect early last fall. I did some research on the organization as a whole to prepare for my interviews however I have learned so much about the enterprise, its mission, vision and values, its people and how leadership fits into the organizational culture in just my first week. With over 300,000 employees (about 70,000 more people than Richmond’s entire population), CVS/Aetna is certainly a large company with lots of large company resources, but also a company that values strong colleague connection and inter-department communication and collaboration.
One of the main modes of communication is email, or course, but also Microsoft Teams, Skype for business and WebEx. All of these platforms were new to me, and the learning curve was, and still is, incredibly steep. This adjustment definitely comes with the job and the virtual working environment, but I appreciated the week of orientation to acclimate. Some of the other technology things like logging hours or accessing HR accounts came with more difficulties. After finally getting access to those things at the beginning of this week, I am feeling a lot better about logging in everyday and being fully present.
Our first week was mostly a high-level overview of the organization and all of its different functions and departments. I knew healthcare organizations were expansive, but I don’t think I truly appreciated this fact until I started looking at the leadership labyrinth embedded in my emails. As a fortune four company (another fact about CVS that most people do not know), CVS and Aetna have to have a talented, intelligent, empowering and expansive leadership team. My manager is a senior director, and he is only 6th or 7th on the chain of command under the CEO Karen Lynch. Even though he is very high up, and I was a bit intimidated by his experience, he has been a great mentor and encouraging presence so far.
One place I have seen more attentive leadership and an overall strength within the leadership development in the organization has been while attending twice-weekly huddle meetings. On Mondays and Wednesdays, my manager hosts his own huddle meeting with his assistant and two team leaders that report directly. There is a living excel document called the “huddle board” linked to every Outlook event that people can update with all different tabs: morale and recognition, demand and capacity, team metrics, and more. It is a nice check in for everyone and some of the only meetings I have been on where everyone has their cameras on and seems 100% present. The meetings last around 30 mins and some are more productive than others, but I think this is something that is easily implemented and fosters a healthy, committed leadership and team relationship. The two team leaders also have their own huddle boards with the supervisors on their teams who then have their own huddle boards with the health concierges on their teams- the leadership hierarchy is unique to Aetna and even unique to service operations, so this is a graphic representation I created for myself on one of my first days on the job:
Overall, after overcoming some of the technological hiccups that come with the first week at any job, I am really liking my team and the program as a whole. So far everyone I have met/heard from, from Chief People Officer to senior director to associate to intern, has been welcoming, positive, and encouraging. There is so much to learn about CVS and Aetna as businesses, as healthcare organizations, and influential leaders in both of those categories. I am excited to get started and more involved in the projects my manager has created for me and learning from him, his team, and my other fellow interns.