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Preparedness prior to commencing the internship and assimilation into the organizational culture.

When I look back at how I was personally and professionally prepared before starting my internship, I would like to think that I had a good platform for myself to jump at any opportunity that may be thrown my way. I had a background working in 2 different elite sporting organisations, working in areas ranging from grassroots sport development, all the way through to data analysis and event management for major projects.  I believe that through the opportunities that I had worked hard for prior to my internship, I was ready to showcase that I was a candidate for future job opportunities in any organisation that I was lucky enough to be approached by.

Personally, I had come a long way since my first major placement back when I was 16, working with the Melbourne Stars as part of their events team.  At that point in time, I was a shy, quiet kid who just loved to be involved in sport and would give anything a go.  By working hard on my personal attributes and having some very good mentors around me, I was able to open up and become more confident in who I am as a person and what I hoped to achieve throughout my career.  Having regular discussions with my school teacher, as well as my placement supervisor and Melbourne Stars CEO, I was challenged along the way in many aspects of my life and I truly believe that these 3 people helped change me as a person for the better.

Professionally, I always knew that I was going to do something within sport for a career. Whether this was through journalism, team operations or event management, I always had the desire to work in the sports industry and do my part to make whatever code I was working for the best it could possibly be.  When I had just come off my first full time contract with the Melbourne Stars, I was approached by the then membership manager for both Melbourne BBL sides and had a few meetings about transitioning into member services.  This was something that I had never seen myself doing as it was a lot of desk work and over the phone communications with members that I had never met and would likely never see face to face.  Monique has been the biggest influence on me professionally throughout my career and I was so lucky to have come across someone like her early in my career.  The trust that Monique put in me from my first day helped me to grow professionally, and whenever I made a mistake, she would help me learn and push me to be better.

Starting at the Amy Gillett Foundation, I found everyone to be very welcoming and friendly.  With our onboarding period being done remotely, this was obviously a challenge for everyone, but we made it work and I felt welcomed into the organisation from our very first day.  As descried by Taylor, et al., ‘Organisational culture is the core values, beliefs and assumptions about how things are done within the organisation.  It is represented by visual artefacts, such as logos, displayed pictures and rewards, as well as stories, myths, rituals and styles of dress.  These things reflect what the organisation is all about and what is valued there (Taylor, et al., 2007).’

With my role throughout the internship, I would be working very closely with Dan (CEO), Stevie (Administration) and Jarrod (Data analysis, Event and Volunteer management). Quickly, I found the culture within the organisation to be great.  Having only a small number of staff members, they all seemed to get along really well together and would be able to have a joke with each other throughout meetings, while also being able to work efficiently towards deadlines and help each other where required.  Being a small organisation, when there was a big event coming up, it was all hands-on deck wherever needed.  

From our first day, Dan made it clear that he saw our internship to challenge us.  Essentially, he wanted to throw us in the deep end, and see if we would sink or swim. Hearing this made it clear to me that I had made the right choice choosing my internship partner.  

To ensure I make the most of this experience, I must remain committed to the organisation or else fatigue, lack of my own personal time, and overwhelming work barriers could stunt my personal and professional development (Levine, et al., 2006)

  References  

Levine, R. B., Haidet, P. K.  D. & Beasley, B. W., 2006. A Qualitative Analysis of Interns' Responses  to Key Questions. Personal Growth During Internship, 21(6), pp.  564-569.

Taylor, T., Doherty, A. & McGraw, P., 2007. A Strategic  Human Resource Management Perspective. Managing People in Sport  Organizations, p. 71.

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Finding your feet in the internship and completing initial tasks

Having now completed my first 40 hours with the Amy Gillett Foundation, I am confident that I made the right choice regarding my internship partner.  Dan and Stevie have been helpful along the way and have given me and Laurie plenty of freedom with the tasks that we have been given so far.  Essentially, we have been treated like any other member of their staff and are not being micromanaged to ensure that we complete our tasks.

To begin, I was given a task to create a doodle poll for the staff Christmas party, still unsure whether this will be done remotely or in person.  My task was to create a poll from scratch using the doodle poll website and then use Gmass to send the email out to each individual staff member with what would appear as a personalised message.  The aim of the poll was to get all staff availability throughout December, as well as their preferred time for the event.  The poll was created with an option to select which dates suited each individual best, and a final question around which time would suit best.  These options were 12-5pm or 6-10pm.

Gmass is a mail merge tool which is used to personalise mass emails.  Using a google doc spreadsheet filled with names and emails, you are able to send a generic email with personalised fields to make the email look like it is addressed to the receiver.  Having never used this tool, I had to do some basic research and training myself, as well as some test runs, to ensure that the email would look professional and personally addressed.  Once I had completed my test runs, I was able to send the email out, collate the data, and send my results back to Stevie and Dan so that they were able to begin planning for the Christmas party.

Recently, I have been tasked with creating a database filled with all Bicycle User Groups (BUGs) and Bicycle Clubs around Australia. This task is important to the Amy Gillett Foundation as it enables them to easily contact various groups around Australia where they can gather support for future funding to the BUG or clubs area in relation to cyclist safety.  Having these BUGs and clubs listed in one datasheet makes it easy to send out emails and get in contact with the correct individual.  Based on the estimated time for completion, this will be one of my main projects that I will look after during my internship.

Figure 1 7 Pillars of Fundraising

 To survive and thrive in a changing world, a NFP must develop a fundraising plan that rests on these 7 pillars of fundraising:

1.       Grants

2.       Donations

3.       Crowdfunding

4.       Memberships

5.       Events

6.       Sales

7.       Sponsorship (Funding Centre, 2020)

Having created a datasheet that contains all of the relevant contact information for BUGs and Clubs within Australia, AGF will be able to get in contact with the relevant BUGs or Clubs to help raise cyclist safety in their area, while also being able to be financially sustainable by building a strong network that can help fulfil these 7 key pillars of fundraising.

Once this datasheet is completed, I would think that this would be used to help AGF’s marketing strategy also.  As an NFP, AGF are selling their mission and vision rather than a product to their consumers.  Having now built this initial relationship with BUGs and Clubs, AGF could look to make use of relationship marketing strategies to ensure future sustainability. Relationship marketing is a strategy for NFPs to use to gain sponsors and members who share the same beliefs and vision (Hussain, et al., 2014).  If AGF are able to utilise relationship marketing to their potential, they will become financially sustainable for many years to come.

  References  

Funding Centre, 2020. The  Seven Pillars of Fundraising: Funding Centre. [Online]  Available at: https://www.fundingcentre.com.au/help/fundraising-pillars  [Accessed 22 November 2020].

Hussain, S. B., Rawjee, V. P. & Penceliah, S., 2014.  Problems and Perspectives in Management. The applicability of relationship  marketing at non-profit organizations: a, 12(4), pp. 155-160.

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Being an effective team member, contributor, building confidence & being efficient

Being an effective team member is important to success in a teamwork environment.  Being able to contribute, manage individual tasks and help others out where required plays a big part in the success of an organisation.  The following 5 reasons summarise the importance of teamwork and why it matters in a workplace:

1.       Teamwork motivates unity in the workplace

2.       Teamwork offers differing perspectives and feedback

3.       Teamwork provides improved efficiency and productivity

4.       Teamwork provides great learning opportunities

5.       Teamwork promotes workplace synergy (Wehbe, 2017)

For leaders in the workplace, there are many ways to encourage teamwork and collaboration.  Being able turn the talents, knowledge and efforts of individuals into a collective force will not only make the workplace more motivated, but also more efficient when it comes to major operations and projects. Leaders who are able to set and encourage employees to follow the following 5 guidelines will be able to turn their workplace into a space where employees can feel confident and thrive:

1.       Set the right example – show others how you want them to behave and perform

2.       Establish a common goal

3.       Allow teams to develop

4.       Get everyone involved

5.       Keep everyone motivated (Messmer, 2002)

 When relating this back to my internship with AGF, it is clear to see that one of the key attributes they look for when hiring is being a team player.  Having only a small number of staff, all AGF staff take on various roles throughout the year when planning for their major event – Amy’s Gran Fondo.  Staff members all have individual tasks assigned to them but are always in constant communication with each other via their numerous group chats and regular meetings to see if anyone needs a hand meeting a certain deadline.  Having now taken on more hours each week with AGF, I am now able to contribute to helping others meet certain deadlines, as well as taking on my own individual tasks during the planning stages of the major event.

Being trusted with coming on board and assigned tasks to a project already in motion, especially the biggest event that AGF run each year, was great for building my confidence within the workplace.  When Dan and Stevie approached me with the idea, I was ready to jump at the chance to contribute something meaningful to the organisation and felt great that over such a short period of time I had been able to gain the trust and confidence to undertake something of this magnitude. My task was to create a survey for BUGs, Clubs and Bike Shops around Australia to engage and gather information about each individual group, promote one of our partner organisations events coming up, as well as promote Amy’s Gran Fondo and encourage these groups to form a team and compete.

References

Messmer, M., 2002. Encouraging teamwork in the workplace. The National Public Accountant, Volume Dec 2002, pp. 32-33.

Wehbe, S., 2017. 5 Important Reasons Why Teamwork Matters!: Potential. [Online] Available at: https://www.potential.com/articles/5-important-reasons-why-teamwork-matters/#:~:text=A%20teamwork%20environment%20promotes%20an,skills%2C%20strengths%2C%20and%20habits. [Accessed 22 November 2020].

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Challenges

As my internship is taking place during Melbourne’s stage 4 COVID lockdown, there have been many challenges both internally and externally.  Internally, onboarding remotely has been a big challenge during my time undertaking my internship with AGF.  Having only been able to meet the team in the form of zoom meetings and group chats, it has been a challenge to get to know everyone and how they work.  This is a challenge that every workplace is having to face as it is new to everyone and having to remotely train employees has been incredibly hard as there is so much to learn when starting a new role with a new organization.  With that being said, I believe that this has benefited me as I have started to use my initiative more and more with each task that I am handed.  Teaching myself new skills to complete tasks has been great for my personal development and I now feel confident that when challenged with a new task, I am able to go away and learn new skills in my own time that will help me complete whatever task I am handed to the best of my ability.  Dan and Stevie have been great to lean on when learning these new skills too, setting up progress meetings as well as keeping in contact with regular email and group chat updates.

In the future, I know that I will come across many challenges in the workplace.  An article by Indeed (Indeed, 2020) has helped put into perspective the challenges that I may face and how to best overcome them with 5 tips and methods:

1.       Remain positive

2.       Admit when you need help

3.       Look at the challenge from all sides

4.       Know when to delegate

5.       Set small goals

Working hours have been easy to adjust to for me. Having had many 9-5 roles previously, I find the adjustment back into this kind of work natural and easy to get into a routine for.  Dan and Stevie have also noted that these hours are flexible, which has been a big positive for me as I am now in the interview process for 2 jobs that I would love to be able to accept if I got the opportunity. If I was to be successful at either one of these interviews, having the flexibility would be a great benefit for me as I would need to work outside of hours to complete the remainder of my internship.

A general definition of motivation is the psychological force that generates complex processes of goal-directed thoughts and behaviors.  In the work domain, work motivation is “a set of energetic forces that originate within individuals, as well as in their environment, to initiate work-related behaviors and to determine their form, direction, intensity and duration (Shkoler & Kimura, 2020)” For myself, working from home has been a bit of a struggle. Having a workspace at home makes it difficult to separate my personal life from my professional life.  Having to look at the same 4 walls that I do for work as well as in my own personal time makes it difficult to have that separation and I am really looking forward to moving back into an office space away from home so I am able to switch off from work when I need to.  

References  

Indeed, 2020. How to  Overcome Challenges in the Workplace: Indeed. [Online]  Available at: https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/overcome-workplace-challenges  [Accessed 22 November 2020].

Shkoler, O. & Kimura, T., 2020. How Does Work  Motivation Impact Employees’ Investment at Work and Their Job Engagement? A  Moderated-Moderation Perspective Through an International Lens. Frontiers  in Psychology, Volume 11, p. 38.

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Achievements and milestones both technically and professionally

A TimesJobs study has revealed the details that recruiters and hiring managers look for in resumes.  They are:

·         45.5% will look for skills first

·         22.5% look for experience

·         15% will look over qualifications

·         10% will look at achievements

·         5% look at rewards and recognition

·         2% are interested in personal details (Nilanjana, 2017)

Professional achievements are a great boost for your resume. These show that you are able to go above and beyond what was expected of you in your previous roles.  This is particularly helpful when looking to take the next step professionally and secure a promotion within the workplace. Some examples of professional achievements can be:

·         Saving the company time and money

·         Increased performance for yourself or the team you were working with

·         Facilitating growth in key areas of the organization

·         Meeting and exceeding work targets (Mohmand, 2019)

Reflecting on my internship, there are many achievements that I will be able to add to my resume in the future.  So far, I have been able to:

·         Create a datasheet for all BUGs, Bicycle Clubs and Bicycle Shops around Australia, with correct contact details and locations

·         Send a Gmass mail merge to over 1000 total BUGs, Clubs and Shops to help gather support for cyclist safety within their local government area

·         Part of a project team that contacted every LGA in Australia to participate in a survey, with over 60% responding and completing the survey around cyclist safety.

·         Part of an organization that was the driving force behind the ‘A Metre Matters’ cyclist safety legislation in all states and territories around Australia, including being actively involved in the announcement of the Victorian Government introducing the legislation from 2021 onwards.

Being able to participate in these achievements and milestones for the Amy Gillett Foundation is great for my future job prospects and will look great on my resume.  These achievements and milestones, and my involvement in them, show that I am a trusted and capable member of the workforce.  They also show potential employers that I have a ‘can-do’ attitude and can juggle many tasks at once, having been a part of these in just over 100 hours completed during my internship.

My biggest technical achievement so far with AGF would have to be the work I have done creating a datasheet for all Clubs, BUG’s and Shops around Australia.  This datasheet has a master copy for each different group, then split into states with a format to find each group in a postcode or local government area.  Having created this for AGF, they now have a resource they can refer to directly when wanting to engage a certain area or group, and rarely needs updating in the future as all have been contacted successfully or replied with updated contact details.

References  

Mohmand, S., 2019. How to  write achievements on a CV (+ best examples): CV Plaza. [Online]  Available at: https://www.cvplaza.com/cv-achievements/how-to-write-achievements-on-a-cv/#:~:text=Achievements%20can%20be%20divided%20into,and%20exceeded%20work%20targets%2C%20etc.  [Accessed 22 November 2020].

Nilanjana, C., 2017. How to write a resume that gets you an  interview call. The Economic Times, 15 August.

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Career aspirations including goal setting

At the beginning of my working career, I had aspirations to work in either event management or game and market development. These were 2 areas that a lot of my early career were based around, having run cricket clinics through my later school years all around Victoria for kids of all ages and abilities, and I found this to be really rewarding.  Following on from these clinics through my school years, I was lucky enough to be offered a work placement with the Melbourne Stars with their event management team, helping out at different events to promote the Big Bash League in its early years, as well as be involved in all areas of delivering a match day experience.  I always had a passion to work in the sports industry, and this was my first real taste of being part of something big.

Following on from this work placement, I was lucky enough to be contacted by the membership manager of both Big Bash League teams in Melbourne and we discussed the opportunity to transfer into the membership department and help with the customer service and data analysis aspects of both Big Bash Clubs.  After some thinking, I came around to the idea and decided to make the switch across. So far, I have enjoyed every minute working in membership and consumer business, having been lucky enough to work with Melbourne Stars and Melbourne Renegades in the Big Bash League, Melbourne Victory in the A-League, and now with St Kilda Football Club in the AFL.

As part of my internship unit requirements, I had to apply for 2 real world jobs of my choice.  After some waiting and searching, I found 2 that I was really interested in – one with St Kilda Football Club as a Consumer Business Representative and another with Melbourne Storm as a Consumer Business Specialist. Understanding the position that sporting organisations are in now having been dealt a heavy blow to staff and spending throughout COVID, I was sure that there would be more applicants than normal and that the chances of me even getting an interview were slim.  To my surprise, I was lucky enough to be interviewed by both organisations and make it to the final candidates for each role. Melbourne Storm contacted me to let me know that I was unsuccessful with my application due to them re-hiring a former employee that had been let go at the beginning of the COVID impacts, but have shortlisted me for any future positions that arise within the club structure. I thought that this was a great touch and shows that the organisation cares for its employees, so if an opportunity arises in the future, I would love to be able to make the transition across.

St Kilda contacted me also and advised that I was a successful candidate, and they would look to bring me in as soon as possible. I was completely caught off guard by this as I was just pleased to have made it to the final round of interviews, but happily accepted their offer and began working with the consumer business team in early October.

Setting goals gives you long-term vision and short-term motivation.  Goal setting focuses your acquisition of knowledge and helps you to organise your time and your resources to make the most of your life.  By setting sharp, clear goals, you can measure and take pride in the achievement of those goals (Mind Tools, 2016).

During my research on how to set professional goals in the workplace, I came across 3 core processes involved with setting and successfully obtaining personal career goals:

(1)    Define work requirements/tasks and personal career goals.

(2)    Determine how well current work tasks fit with personal career goals; and

(3)    Make a plan to reorganize and prioritize work tasks to align with personal career goals (Sadowski & Schrager, 2016)

In the future, I have set myself some goals, but I am in no rush to achieve as there is still so much for me to learn and develop. In the future, I would like to achieve the following:

·         Secure a full-time contract as a Consumer Business Specialist within the next 12 months

·         Progress to a Relationship and Consumer Executive within 3 years

·         Progress to Consumer Operations Manager within 7 years

·         Progress to General Manager of Consumer Business within 12 years.

While this is something that I have set myself, I am always open to change and my perspective on where I fit in an organization may change in the future.  

References  

Mind Tools, 2016. Personal  Goal Setting: Mind Tools. [Online]  Available at: https://www.mindtools.com/page6.html  [Accessed 22 November 2020].

Sadowski, E. & Schrager, S., 2016. Achieving Career  Satisfaction: Personal Goal Setting and Prioritizing for the Clinician  Educator. Journal of Graduate Medical Education, 8(4), pp. 494-497.

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Supervisor evaluations and future career professional development requirements

With now completed over half of my 228-hour internship with the Amy Gillett Foundation, I was due to receive a halfway evaluation from my supervisors, Dan and Stevie.  Recently taking a backward step from my internship and completing this after hours and on the weekends, I was a bit worried about receiving this as I did not know what kind of feedback I would now receive.  Being a graded piece of work, I did not want to lose any marks because I was taking the next step in my personal and professional development.

Having now had our meeting and going over the evaluation together, I was delighted that my hard work had paid off and received an extremely positive review from AGF.  To top the review off, Dan and Stevie mentioned that they were actually in the process of drawing up a contract for me to become part of the team once my internship had finished.  This was great to hear and in any other situation I would have jumped at the chance to continue working with AGF, unfortunately I had just received my offer from St Kilda and had accepted this which meant I wouldn’t have been able to accept the offer put forward by AGF.  Dan and Stevie were both really supportive of my decision and I felt they were genuinely happy for me that I was able to secure a role in an area that I am passionate about.

Reading the feedback from Dan and Stevie gave me a chance to reflect on myself personally and professionally too.  In my mind, what I thought I was doing well was reflected in the feedback that I had received and the described areas that they thought I needed to improve on were also included.  

Some of my weaknesses include time management and trying to take on too much for myself without asking for help when I need it. I know that if I am to take the next step professionally, I will need to sound out for help earlier or else I could end up missing deadlines for tasks or too far behind to catch back up to where I need to be.

In the future I will look to continue to develop and work on these weaknesses, so they do not impact my future job prospects.  In general, students like myself have been found to focus too much on our short term planning, while having bad habits and attitudes towards our long term goals (Sainz, et al., 2019).  

To help combat these weaknesses, I will look to introduce a planner for myself so I can see what appointments I have coming up, and what areas of my time I can use more efficiently.  Some skills and attributes that I can develop over the coming years are:

·         Goal Setting

·         Planning

·         Prioritisation

·         Organisation

·         Communication

·         Multitasking

·         Decision Making

·         Record Keeping

·         Stress Management

·         Strategic Thinking (Indeed, 2020)

While I do not think I will ever become the most organised or efficient person, I do hope to add an improve on these skills in my profession and personal life.  To take the next step and take on more responsibility within the workforce, I know that my time management skills need to continue to improve so I do have the capacity to undertake more meaningful tasks that could become quite time consuming as well as have some tighter deadlines attached to them.

  References

Indeed, 2020. Time Management Skills: The Importance of Including Them in Your Resume: Indeed. [Online] Available at: https://au.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/time-management-skills [Accessed 22 November 2020].

Sainz, M. A., Ferrero, A. M. & Ugidos, A., 2019. Time management: skills to learn and put into practice. Education + Training, 9(1), p. 3678.

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Overall reflections on the internship and your studies from starting your degree

Looking back at my time at Holmesglen, I am happy to have achieved what I have so far and making it to the end of the course. Along the way, I would have loved to commit myself more to the course and get involved with each unit, but having been so time poor for much of my degree, I think I have done well to make it to the end.  

Throughout my time in the course, I have learnt a lot in new areas that I was yet to experience and this has helped me form an idea of where I would like to head in my career.  At the beginning, I thought that I was only ever going to work in a game and market development role, whether this being as a participation manager or region manager, but with all my learnings and new understandings of the industry, I feel that I will have more to offer in a consumer business role.

Working with VAFA clubs and with other local sports clubs throughout the course was the real eye opener for me in what I hoped to achieve throughout my working career.  The major tasks for each unit around marketing, sponsorship, governance and strategy pointed me in a direction that I hadn’t really seen myself enjoying, but found that I actually enjoyed doing a lot of the groundwork and understanding each aspect came quite naturally to me, even if sometimes my work didn’t show this to its full potential.

Having now nearly completed my internship with the Amy Gillett Foundation, I can reflect on what I have been able to achieve in such a short time with the company.  During the interview process, I wasn’t sure on whether I had made the right choice taking on 2 full 228 hour internships, but I am glad that I did and the team at AGF have been a major factor behind that.  Having Dan and Stevie structure the internship to challenge myself with each task made this really enjoyable and I was happy to be able to contribute in a meaningful way to the organization.

Being able to fast track my internship after my first couple of days into full time hours was really enjoyable and being invited and included in all staff meetings was a great way to make me feel welcome and part of the organization.  Had my situation not changed, I would have loved to take them up on their job offer. Working in their community and events department was a great way to open up new avenues for myself in the future and I would definitely consider moving from elite sporting organisations into not for profit work at some stage. For the remainder of my internship, I am focused on getting stuck into whatever projects Dan and Stevie have planned, as well as soaking up as much knowledge as I possibly can.

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Quarter Times Entry

My name is Ben Slight, and I am a 3rd year Sports Business student with Holmesglen.  Throughout my time in the course, I have been working in various roles with sporting organisations such as Melbourne Stars and Melbourne Renegades in the KFC BBL, as well as Melbourne Victory in the A-League.  Currently, I am working with St Kilda Football Club in their consumer business department and am really looking forward to seeing where my career takes me.

This year, I was lucky enough to secure 2 internships – my first with the Amy Gillett Foundation in their community and events department, and a second with the Melbourne Aces working with their ticketing and box office coordinator.

During my time with the Amy Gillett Foundation, I have worked on various different projects around community engagement.  It was a really exciting time to be involved with AGF as we were in constant contact with federal and state MP’s who were helping pass legislation in Victoria for the ‘A Metre Matters’ road cyclist safety campaign.  We are also in the process of surveying bicycle user groups (BUGs), bicycle clubs, bike shops and LGA’s all around Australia to help us lobby for improved road cycling conditions around Australia.  If anyone is struggling to find a suitable internship partner, I would highly recommend the team at AGF.  Dan and Stevie have been great for my personal and professional development and will make sure you are constantly challenged to get the best out of yourself during your internship.

Looking forward to the future, I am really excited about starting my internship with the Melbourne Aces over summer.  Working at each home stand throughout the season, I see this as a great opportunity to get involved in a growing sport in Australia and the potential to look abroad for future opportunities in baseball.  With the internship that the Aces have offered in ticketing and box office operations, I hope to use this opportunity to further develop professionally and advance my career in the consumer business area of the sports industry.