Week 6 – Solving Problems

Now that I have been working for six weeks, I have observed different ways in which I feel that my team, and the company as a whole, could improve. One thing that I’ve noticed is that there are traditional ways of doing things and people don’t really stray away from them. On the social media side specifically, it was only within the last year or so that they started creating more uniform and appealing graphics to post on their channels. This was due to a younger person joining the team and taking that initiative, which has really helped with post engagement. I also noticed that they hardly ever use hashtags, and when I asked why, they said it just wasn’t something they had ever done. As the social media team, these are things that I feel should be on their radar. Being proactive is important, and I have been trying to do so this summer, with my suggestion to create a LinkedIn account for the CEO as well as research into the use and benefits of hashtags. I think this could all be addressed by my manager simply encouraging everyone to be more proactive and to speak up when they notice that there are areas where we might be falling behind the competition.

Another area that some individuals struggle with is communication. Now that we are all working remotely, there is a greater need to communicate with one another, and with the team as a whole, to ensure that everyone stays in the loop. At the beginning of my internship, my manager stressed this a lot, as people weren’t utilizing Microsoft Teams as much as they should have to inform the team about certain things. This is something that everyone has gotten much better at over the past few weeks, and it certainly makes a difference in our effectiveness and efficiency. For the last few weeks of the internship, I am going to try and talk more in our team channel in an effort to prompt others to do the same. Overall, I do think that my team runs fairly smoothly and people are good about utilizing each other to get things done.