The Work Placement in Wassel Investment Company - Book Report/Review Example

Introduction Applying the academic foundational theories in practical scenarios is very important for a student to have an organized approach towards the theoretical learning. The practical applications of these theories in work scenarios help the students to develop operational perspectives leading to positive learning. Students also get an opportunity to get exposed to the latest developments in the applications of these theories. This encourages further learning and urges one to follow further developments in these areas. The work placement gives a student the ideal opportunity to have an early industry experience. The student will be able to correlate the theoretical inputs in the class to industry contexts. Moreover, the industry experience will empower the student with a proper assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of oneself. This is however important at the mid phase of one’s education. An assessment of what one lacks and the personal strengths would serve as a benchmark for the professional achievements. Further, academic learning can be perceived against these benchmarks. In other words, in would be very clear on what one lacks and what has to be achieved through academics to be industry ready. I was assigned my work placement with Wasseb Investment Company. The Company works in the area of Petrochemicals and Chemical Industries. Its objective is establishing industrial projects in Petrochemicals and Chemical Industries. It offers maintenance and technical support in areas of mechanical and electric service, projects in agriculture, desalination projects, marketing and commerce solutions etc. Its area of operation is mainly in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (Wasseb, 2013). However, they also projects operating outside the country. The main three wings of the company include Wasseb Investment Company, Wasseb Technologies and Wasseb Technologies for Water Treatment. Wasseb Technologies deals with a range of areas including Oil & Gas, Aerospace & Defense, Energy & Environment and Mechanics & Transportation. The company is a $ 1000 Million holding which makes it one of the largest in the country (Wasseb, 2013). The work placement profile Being one of the largest stakeholders in the industry, Wasseb Investment Company undertakes a lot of marketing initiatives. I was placed as the marketing assistant in the company. For a company which works in such wide range of projects and has large scope of growth, the department of marketing plays a very important role. Thus the position that I was given with involved relatively high relevance. I underwent a company-based training which taught be the importance that marketing holds with reference to the growth of the company. The training aimed at orienting the interns on the marketing practices that the company followed. The protocols in the marketing practices and the marketing standards that had to be followed in the procedures were explained in detail. It also contained tips on documenting and logging the marketing processes. The period of the work placement was two months. The basic strategy that the company followed with reference to internships was that the interns were integrated into the routine marketing processes of the company. Thus as an intern I could enjoy the same privileges in terms of work environment as other employees in marketing. This also meant that my exposure to the company resources were as same as other employees. This in turn oriented me in the latest techniques in marketing. As the company dealt with products and services which were of high value, I was interacting with clients who stood high in their industrial stature. Moreover, the kind of services and products were potential determinants of commercial standards in a wide range of industries. Thus the upcoming trends in various allied industries were quite foreseeable through the marketing trends. I was reporting to the one of the leader of the marketing executives. I had to report the achievements of the day through the customized logs. However, my accountability was limited as I was not given targets as given to the full time marketing executives. The limitation here was that the kinds of targets to be achieved by the employees were long term in nature. This was not applicable in my case as my involvement with the company was limited to two months. The nature of work largely involved developing marketing tools. Digital and analogue formats of marketing materials were to be produced. The major focus was to be on the quality of the services that Wasseb Investment Company offered. As the industry is highly competitive, this task was challenging. The company used state-of-art techniques to face this ever emerging challenge. The marketing department underwent frequent changes in their strategy to cope up with the requirements of the industry. All these strategic changes were directly translated into marketing tools. All issues concerning the changing needs of the customer, their tastes and preferences were covered by these strategies. These strategic changes were to be incorporated in the marketing tools that I was assigned to design. Thus it was direct exposure to the latest trends in the industry. The precision in communication was key driver of success in terms of the task I was assigned. I was given continued feedback with regard to this. This involved a lot of redoing, redesigning and restructuring the marketing tools so as to have precision. My superior has to travel extensively for taking up marketing requirements. I was to take up his routine tasks when he was away. This added a lot to my responsibilities. However, this also gave me the opportunity to directly interact with other superior officers. These interactions could be successfully translated into tangible learning in terms of marketing trends and strategies. I also had to attend the review meetings where the performance of individual employees and the marketing progress of the department were also discussed. There used to be lengthy deliberations on the achievements and the shortfalls. The aggressive nature of the company’s marketing strategy often made these meetings quite challenging for the employees. This pressure certainly percolated to the lower levels and the expectations out of me also were set at a higher level. Outcomes from the placements The work placement opportunity was successful in exposing me to the professional requirements of the industry. I was able to apply the knowledge I had acquired from my academic exposure into a professional environment. The major strength that Wasseb Investment Company had as an ideal work placement option was that it existed in a very competitive professional space. The increasing competition urged the company to raise their professional quality bars quite frequently. This in turn improved the professional standards expected from its employees. Thus the competency of all levels of employees had to be raised accordingly. This reflected in the professional outcomes which were expected out of me as well. Moreover, the overall improvement in the professional practices automatically exposed me to these improved practices. This in turn would serve as a benchmark for further theoretical learning to be achieved. I could earn a lot of respect for the ethics and the professional values that I exhibited during my work placement. As I saw the placement as an opportunity to have maximum exposure, I could manage to work really hard. This in turn paid off as this was specifically mentioned in some of the review meetings. This improved my confidence and courage to take up professional challenges. The appreciation I received to me is a certification of my employability skills. Thus the opportunity in the work placement with Wasseb Investment Company is that it could be seen as an opportunity which quantified my market value as a professional. I could clearly identity my professional strengths and weaknesses through the work placement opportunity. As stated above, my credibility as a professional was confirmed through the statements of the superiors. However, in the process I realized that many professional skills which I was overconfident that I had were lacking or were not given proper attention and training. I could come to know that I had to really work hard on certain set of activities to have proper command over it. This proved to me that these skills are to be trained continuously and developed continuously so that I am equipped to have them ready in any given professional environment. I attained a lot of professional maturing during my course of work in Wasseb Investment Company. Many of the people I interacted with were much elder to me. To have maintained a healthy professional relationship with people of different age and cultural background equipped me to be more emotionally stable. Many professional etiquettes and unwritten rules of the work space were learnt in the process. One threat that persists in terms of the placement opportunity at Wasseb Investment Company is the structuring and the management of the work placement. Generally, the interns are not seen as serious as the general employees. Thus the management of the work placement is also quite loosely constituted. The supervision and the accountability of the placement students were also quite limited compared to that of other employees. In terms of the company, this can lead to manipulation and wastage of resources in terms of money, time and energy. In some cases it may also interfere with the reputation of the company. When the lack of accountability is coupled with the inherent immaturity of students, the consequences may be severe. In terms of the learning outcomes of the work placement as well the management and supervision plays an important role. Knowles (1986) has opined that the learning will be undermined if the placement is inappropriately supervised and structured. One obvious consequence expected out of a loosely structured placement is that the student will fail to make connections between the theory and professional practice as there will be less interaction between the theory and the practice (Duignan, 2002) There could also be cases where students are placed in jobs within the organization which has no relevance to their academic background. Moreover, a limitation which is observed quite widely in placements is that students will be given responsibilities catering for very specific competencies (Duignan, 2002). For a student this would limit the scope of learning as this approach would fail in providing a deeper understanding of the inherent systems. Thus the student will only be exposed to sub applications of certain theories where as the overall sense of the theories would remain unexplored (Morgan & Turner, 2000) The quality of supervision has also been identified as an important variable in the efficiency of work placement by Ryan (1996). In the case of my work placement in Wasseb Investment Company all these factors related to the structure and supervision of the placement had evident roles. My placement was for a very limited period of two months. But I was integrated into the routine operations of the marketing department. This meant that my work placement was not designed specifically for two months; rather it was integration into the routine processes of the organization. I could evidently cultivate competencies with reference to the designing of marketing tools. However, a larger sense of the market and connections with the theories were not given provisions in the training. However, fortunately for me the review meetings which I had to attend provided a sense of the larger market picture which helped me to connect with my academic knowledge. In case of supervision, the limited period of work restricted the company from giving me targets which in general are long term in nature. Thus I didn’t have any specific benchmarks against which I was to be assessed. However, as I was to takeover my immediate superior’s responsibilities when he used to be in field brought me under the direct supervision of the next superior officer. Thus quite often I was supervised against the targets given for my superior. Recommendations The major limitation that was identified in the work placement was the lack of a proper structure for it. Thus Wasseb Investment Company should have customized packages for students pursuing work placement in the company. As of the structure of work that was assigned to me, there was no conclusive approach it, as my placement was not relative to any specific tasks. The duration of my placement had only reference to the two month period as prescribed by the university. Thus the nature of the placement and the tasks has to have a customized nature. This has to have direct connections with the academic outcomes expected out of the placement. In terms of the duration of the placement, it is also noted that the duration of two months is too limited to contain the objectives of the placement. By the time I got acquainted to the processes and procedures in the company, the placement got over. Thus the outcome of the placement can be lot more effective if the placement is of a longer duration. Conclusion In totality, the work placement could equip with a lot of skills and competencies relevant to my academic background. I could identify my strengths when placed in a professional scenario. My communication skills and the positive attitude towards work were tangibly appreciated during the placement. This boosted my self confidence and confirmed my employability skills. My readiness to work hard was recorded during the review meetings. Thus the experience could contribute a lot to my personal strengths. The professional maturity which I identified to be lacking in me during the initial days of the placement could be worked on. Various instances where I had to respond professionally instead of reacting emotionally occurred during the placement. This trained me to be a professional and to adhere to the consistency in the professional approach. I could identify the personal weaknesses of mine, which was limiting my professional excellence. Many work requirements of the industry which I thought I could confidently handle turned out to be limitations of mine. However, this realization helped me to work on them through these two months and I could achieve notable improvements in these factors. In terms of industry readiness, I could develop those skills which I lacked. I found the work placement in Wasseb Investment Company as an opportunity to try the application of several theories and the acquired academic knowledge. However, the limited time duration of the work placement and the specific task oriented nature of the internship restricted this. But the observations from the industry would help me to have an overview on the practical implications of the academic knowledge. Further when I come across theoretical knowledge, I will be able to have a moiré realistic perception on its applications. I have however realized that as an intern one must have a very specific focus on identifying and absorbing the learning relevant to ones academic background. It has to be a self driven process and relying on the supervisory mechanism of a loosely designed work placement system will have the threat of not achieving the desired objectives. Thus apart from a supervisory approach, the student must be self driven while being in a work placement. References Ryan, G., Toohey, S. & Hughes, C., 1996. The purpose, value and structure of the placement in higher education: a literature review. Higher Education, 31(3), p. 355-377. Wasseb., 2013 About Us, WASSEB, [Online] available at [Accessed 17 March 19, 2013]. Knowles, M. S, 1986, Using Learning Contracts: Practical Approaches to Individualizing and Structuring Learning, San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Duignan J ,2002. Undergraduate work placement and academic performance: Failing by doing, In HERDSA, 25tha Annual Conference: Research and Development in Higher Education: Quality Conversations 2002 conference proceedings. Perth, 7-10 July 2002. Perth Morgan, A. & Turner, D., 2000, Adding Value to work Placement: working Towards a professional qualification in an undergraduate Degree Programme, Education + Training,42 (8), p. 453-460 Read More