Okay, you work in internal communications..but what do you DO?
by Yanniek van Dooren
Hello my fellow IBCoMmers! How’s life?
In my last blog post, I mentioned how my team and my colleagues are still getting used to a new organisation and a new way of working. This means that a few hours a week, I am locked up with my team trying to shape, define and redefine our collective objectives and visions. But as much as I like contributing to these things, I’m glad to say that this is not all I do with my time in the office. In fact, I spend most of it working on a number of different projects – some big, some small; some in collaboration with colleagues, others pretty independently. Every last one of them exciting and challenging in their own way.
One project that currently takes up much of my time is FfdeWeekDoornemen. This is an informal internal event that takes place every Friday afternoon, where board members and other leaders reflect on the past week and colleagues from all levels of the organisation can share their own achievements and ideas. I started taking up the communication around this event a few weeks ago, and am now responsible for rolling out the concept to other head offices and making sure the organisation of the event in my own office keeps running smoothly. My organising and event management skills have definitely benefitted from this one!
Another project that has been boosting my organising skills lately is the organisation of New Year’s event for the communications department. After some pretty energetic brainstorm sessions we can actually start planning the activities, booking the location, and executing the whole thing. I love the challenge of communicating just enough to spark curiosity and excitement, while keeping our plans as vague and mysterious as possible. This is not as easy as it sounds, in a space where the only closed work places are surrounded by glass walls. 😉
Finally, I’ve been putting a lot of time and effort in the development of a tool that we can use to test the atmosphere and start the dialogue within the organisation. This project, more than anything else I’ve been doing in my first months at ING, has shown me just how complex of an organisation I’m working in. Designing a new tool like this is a challenge in itself, but the execution has brought with it a whole world of technical, legal, policy and security issues that I’d never even thought of before. It’s been intimidating at times, definitely, but I never would have missed the opportunity to experience this.
On top of these projects, there are a million other smaller activities that keep me busy on a day-to-day basis. But to write about all of them would take most of my well-earned Christmas break and at least six more blog posts, so let’s not get too much into that. Of course, if any of you second years are interested in doing an internship in internal communications (at ING, anyone?!) I am more than happy to tell you all about it. For now, enjoy the holidays and promise me to save the stress about uni and/or internships for after your Christmas break. See you next year!