This report will be focused on my year internship at Johnson & Johnson, touching upon my experiences within a multinational company as well as the skills I developed throughout the year. The report is structured using the CareerEdge model (Dacre Pool & Sewell, 2007) and outlines 7 key topics:
The aim of this report is analysing the gaps outlined in the NBS attribute matrix and how I will address them within my final year at university.
Executive Summary………………………………………………
1. Introduction………………………………………………..
2. Transferable learnings from Degree……………………………….
3. Placement Experience…………………………………………
4. Generic Skills………………………………………………..
5. Emotional Intelligence…………………………………………
6. Career Development…………………………………………..
7. Conclusion………………………………………………….
8. Reference…………………………………………………..
This report will be based on a self-reflection of my year internship at The Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson. Janssen is one of the world leaders in the pharmaceutical industry, placing for the 5th consecutive year as number 1 in Fortune Magazine’s Worlds most admired company list (Fortune, 2018). The company focuses on developing medicines to fight diseases in four key areas: Immunology, Infectious diseases, oncology and Neuroscience (Janssen 2018). Throughout this report I will be analysing and evaluating my experiences, touching upon theory I have learnt in modules undertaken in my first and second year at Nottingham Trent University.
Accompanied with 3 years at Nottingham Trent, for a student to be awarded a BA (Hons) International Business degree they must have completed either a year of studying abroad, or have worked in a professional field. Choosing the later, I was appointed as a Commercial Strategy Assistant, based within two Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) teams, Neuroscience and Value Optimisation. The reflective report will base itself on the CareerEDGE model (Dacre Pool & Sewell, 2007), linking in degree subjects, emotional intelligence, generic skills and experience. I have selected this model due to its lack of complexity in the area of employability, compared to some other models such as USEM model (Yorke and Knight, 2004)
The final aim of this report will be to create a structured professional development plan, which will act as a guide to what I plan to achieve in my final year and what continuing professional development (CPD) is required to achieve my long term career goals and becoming a more well-rounded graduate candidate.
Working within a global business, challenges between managing different cultures and diversity can arise (J.Mole, 2003). Culture, distinguishes how a particular society or group views the world (Hofstede, 1984). Working within a regional team, I was subject to interactions with a large variety of colleagues from cultures different from my own. My initial thoughts were that this would be a challenge, as I would have to continuously adapt to best accommodate each co-worker. Despite this, I found that instead of a number of different cultures all trying to work in harmony, J&J had developed their own internal culture which employees collectively honoured.
Due to J&J being an American company, I saw a clear correlation between Hoftstede’s research into the United States and the culture instilled inside the organisation. America has a relatively low ‘power distance’ meaning they believe power is distributed equally (Hoftstede, 1984). Working within J&J, managers and employees had a high level of respect and communication with one another. My meetings with my superiors would support this research, as I often felt like a peer rather than a subordinate.
Although J&J is an American company, it’s characteristics aren’t completely aligned with the results from the cultural dimension’s study. America is seen to have a high degree of individualism within its society (Hofstede, 1984), however my experiences whilst at J&J would show that it is more collectivistic. I say this, because, J&J often emphasised a feeling of “we are all in this together” to their way of working, which I believed this improved companionship between colleagues within the company. This attitude is very similar to my time within sporting teams, as a collectivistic approach was often the key to our success when playing against an opposition.
The pharmaceutical industry is often subject to criticism regarding ethical issues. Different from most markets, the pharmaceutical industry produces medicine which in many cases can be life-saving. Like most businesses, the ultimate aim is to make a profit, however J&J as a pharmaceutical company has obligation to supply affordable drugs to those in need. During my internship, I became aware of the J&J credo which in their own words, “challenges us to put the needs and well-being of the people we serve first” (Johnson & Johnson, 2011). This credo is used almost as a moral compass, with aim to provide high quality products, while keeping costs low, so prices are affordable.
J&J follows a teleological approach in their ethical decision making, in that they base their decisions on the consequences towards the doctors, patients and families they provide for (Daniels et al, 2o14). Corporate Social Responsibility plays a big part in why J&J is so admired. As part of my year, J&J put the placement students in charge of raising money for a local charity, this first hand showed me J&J initiatives on giving back to the community. On a global platform, they are often seen working in partnership with charities to help improve the life of their patients, an example of this is shown with their collaboration with the American Diabetes Association, giving kids a chance to go on summer camp who are diagnosed with type 1 diabetes (Johnson & Johnson, 2017).
Johnson & Johnson follow a “functional hierarchic” organisational structure (Johnson, 2015), commonly known as a matrix structure. A matrix structure is where there isn’t a single line of hierarchy, instead there is multiple chains of command (Stuckenbruck, 1979). From my time at J&J, I was able to assess the advantages and disadvantages of having a matrix structure. The common disadvantages found with a matrix structure can be tendencies towards anarchy, power struggles, decision strangulation and unclear roles and responsibilities (Davis & Lawrence, 1978). Throughout my internship I experienced supporting evidence for some of these disadvantages. ‘Decision Strangulation’, in preparing for an EMEA meeting in Barcelona, is one that arose. The matrix structure within J&J meant that at times, people felt they needed everyone to be in agreement which caused endless debates and delays in decision making. During this project, I felt our fast approaching deadlines caused stress within myself and the team. Initially I would have argued this was a bad experience, but looking back, I instead believe this was good learning experience, as it actually allowed me to understand the issues that can occur without a clear line of authority. I believe that an allocation of a single group lead would have increased efficiency in the decision making. This tactic is one often used during university group work, this technique has shown to support my claim on increased efficiency.
The common disadvantages explained by Davis & Lawrence, couldn’t always be linked to my time working within J&J. This might be due to the fact that the publication of the article was 40 years ago, so it could be seen as dated. A key advantage of an implemented matrix structure is that it improves communication cross functionally in the organisation (Ford & Randolph, 1992). During my internship, cross-functional communication had a huge influence on the success of projects. During my year I was involved in creating an online share-point to help with lateral communication. This project meant I had to work with people from multiple teams to collect the right information, so a matrix system was of great benefit.
My experiences of organisational structures had been limited to traditional functional structures, which was most prominent during my time at Marks & Spencer. Comparing the two structures, I personally felt a matrix benefits outweighed the negatives, compared to a traditional functional structure. Often when working in M&S, I sensed feeling just like a small cog in the machine, whilst at J&J my experience was completely different.
My responsibilities within Janssen were split between two teams within the EMEA region, neuroscience and value optimisation. This meant I reported to one manager within each respective team, the benefit is that I was able to experience two completely different managerial styles, autocratic and democratic. Working under an autocratic managerial style proved to be the most challenging during my internship and in fact raised issues throughout my year until the manager’s departure in February. Disadvantages of autocratic leadership can be seen across a number pieces of literature (Eagly & Johnson, 1990, Khan et al, 2015) the recurring themes show that autocratic leadership can discourage communication, creativity, decrease employee morale and productivity, as well as cause friction between the workforce. Unfortunately, my experience resembled these drawbacks with my manager in the value optimisation team, however saying this, not all interactions between myself and my manager were negative. During our 7 months of working together, often I was subject to disagreements, and I felt I was unable to voice my views in meetings, which decreased my morale and personal development. Instead of feeling like an equal, I felt more inferior, which made me feel out of place in not being shown the same respect as others. There were clear drawbacks from this managerial style, but looking back on this I feel it was also one of greatest tests of my internship. I learnt how to address work conflict, and how to overcome workplace issues. How I went about this, was to first approach colleagues who I had built a strong relationship to ask their advice, and then confront the situation head on. Going to colleagues for advice was a good first initial step as they had years of experience behind them, it also settled my nerves before addressing how I felt with my manager. The advice they offered was to prepare a list of my expectations I looked for in a manager and ways the current situation could be improved. After a productive meeting, addressing the issue head on, my relationship with this manager improved greatly.
During my time working within the Neuroscience team, I was faced with a completely different managerial style, which resembled democratic. Democratic leaders, sometimes known as participative leaders, encourage participation in decision making, as well as develops plans to help employees achieve their goals (Khan et al, 2015). My relationship with this manager was extremely positive, not only in my morale, but also development as a graduate prospect. My manager took the time to assess my strengths and weaknesses using my Insights profile evaluation (see appendices 6), and adapted her way of managing to get the best out of me.
Generic skills can be defined as “core skills” or “transferable skills” (Pool & Sewell, 2007). “Employers and their representatives consistently say that to succeed at work, most people in future must develop a range of personal and intellectual attributes” (Harvey, 2000, Pg 7-8). The aim of this report was to analyse my current attributes as well as link it to examples in where I had clearly demonstrated these skills in use. Using the NBSs attribute matrix, I rated my current ability in 7 “generic skills” that are seen to be commonly sought after by employers. From a critical evaluation of myself, I concluded that through my exposure to sport, academia, and employment I had built a strong foundation of skills that would put me in a good position in the graduate jobs market. Saying this, a clear gap was formed, which shows in areas such as analytical problem solving and organisation needed improvement. Justifying my skills can clearly be shown not only in my NBS Matrix, but within my CV and LinkedIn profile (appendix 4 + 5).
As a J&J employee you are subject to an ‘Insights Personal Profile evaluation’ (previously mentioned in section 3.2), the aim of this is to give the participant a good self-understanding of their strengths and weaknesses, as well as helps employers create effective strategies to interact with that participant. Key highlights from this evaluation can be found in appendix 6. From this I was able to clearly understand my strengths and weaknesses e.g. ‘sometimes lacks attention to detail’ and ‘doesn’t always take time to listen to others views’.
“Emotional intelligence is the ability to monitor one’s own and others’ feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and actions” (Mayer & Salovey, 1990). The ability to monitor one’s own and others’ feelings is something I believe is learnt through trial and error, in the sense that through past experiences you are able to gauge how certain events will cause certain reactions. Linking back to section 3.2 of the report, in where I touched upon my dispute with my manager, I showed emotional intelligence, as I understood the best way to handle that situation, which ultimately minimised further conflict.
Emotional intelligence, has not always been my strongest attribute, but has definitely improved during my time at university and placement. I have found that on occasions I have struggled to control my emotions in certain situations, primarily in my sporting life due to my competitiveness, when things haven’t gone the way I had hoped. Through working in group tasks at university, as well as in a professional setting, I have been able to develop much more of an understanding of people’s emotions. I think this is a skill that will only continue to develop more during my final year and future employment.
University is often seen as the gateway to your future career, the skills and attributes you gain within the time of starting, to the time of completion, are meant to develop you into an employable member of society in your chosen field. My development is highlighted within the NBS attribute matrix (Appendix 1), and shows analysis of my skills in where I thrive and where I need improvement.
After the completion of my year internship, I was offered a place on the Johnson & Johnson 2-year graduate scheme. The graduate scheme is aimed at developing future leaders of the company. Over the coming 2 years, I will cover a number of roles in different functions to get a deeper understanding of the whole business. I hope that through this 2-year scheme, I will have a ‘foot in the door’ to the pharmaceutical industry.
During my final year, I aim to develop areas I feel need improvements (see appendices 2) and to go back to J&J hitting the ground running.
The aim of this report was to demonstrate an understanding of the progress made in my personal development and the gaps I need to develop whilst in my final year at Nottingham Trent. Through reflection of my experiences, notably during my internship, I have shown a clear aptitude to working in a professional setting and been able to link theory from years 1 and 2 into my day to day work life.
Culture, Communication and learning (CCL) and Intercultural effectiveness, have been pivitol in my adaptation into working within a regional team. A completely different experience can often be found challenging, from this report I outlined that the positives and negatives I was faced with and how I overcame them.
With the use of the NBS attribute matrix, I have evaluated and understood where my strengths and weaknesses now are. As a global citizen it has been imperative to develop an international awareness, and I believe my internship has clearly shown this. Moving on to my final year I feel confident in my key attributes and look to primarily focus on achieving a upper second class honours.
Appendix 1
| SKILLS/KNOWLEDGE/ATTRIBUTE |
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