Reflection 6: Organizational Culture

Now that I am in the last week of my internship at O’Neill and Associates, I have gained more insight into the culture of the organization. Because my internship is remote, I figured that the organizational culture would be difficult to maintain, but this has not been the case. Overall I have found it to be a very friendly and welcoming atmosphere. Meetings start with a few minutes of catching up and talking about our days, and most people have been interested in getting to know me even if they do not work directly with me. I noticed early on that many staff members have been working at O’Neill and Associates for 20+ years, so they have known each other for a very long time. I think that this probably makes it easier to maintain relationships while working remotely and demonstrates a high level of employee satisfaction. Several employees are former interns, including the intern coordinator and my mentor, who have been here for 15 years, and the two new hires on my team, who started this spring. 

When I first began my internship and started meeting more of the full-time employees, one of the first things I noticed when people told me about themselves was the many different professional experiences that they had had prior to working at O’Neill and Associates. Some employees used to work for an elected official or government office, while others have a background in public relations and communications. Because there is not really a standard path to working at O’Neill and Associates, there is a wide variety of knowledge and experience that employees bring to their roles. This results in a very collaborative environment because people are very willing to share expertise or utilize relationships from prior experiences in order to help each other with projects. For example, when I was having trouble getting reliable contact information for a government agency to help a client, my mentor told me to reach out to another senior director who used to work there, and she ended up putting me directly in touch with someone she knew who could help me.