My first couple of weeks at Hewitt as a graduate trainee
3 day induction
I was quite nervous about starting at Hewitt after a few months off over the summer after graduation, so I decided to get in touch with Chris who I worked with last summer so we could get the train to Bicester together. We had to get a taxi to the training centre, which was in the middle of nowhere! When we finally arrived, we quickly had our photo taken (little did I know these were going to be sent round the office on our first day at the office!) and had to get changed for the outdoor activities.
We had a short presentation to introduce us to the facilitators and then got put into teams to work in for the activities. We managed to complete the first task (getting from A to B with some planks and making sure they came with us and didn't touch the grass) - just about - we were nearly finished and one team member dropped a plank on the grass, which meant we got sent back to the start! But luckily we learnt from our first time and managed to complete the task in 5mins about 2 seconds before our total time was up! Then it was time for the water activity...
We'd been told in our letter about the induction 3 days that we might want to bring swimwear or clothes we didn't mind getting wet, so I thought the water activity would be something to do with swimming! But luckily it raft building so I didn't think we'd get that wet... There were 4 teams, we each had to build a raft (which we had been taught how to do in the morning) and then race each other along the lake. I raced in our team and we won! Then the rest of the teams who didn't get a chance to race the first time, and the facilitators had a chance at racing. I'm glad I'd gone first because there was loads of splashing and some people (mainly the facilitators) got in the water!
After lunch we got split up into the teams we would be working in to do the project for the rest of the week. We had a short activity to show us how we worked as a team and things we needed to improve on (like not talking over each other!) and then we were given the brief for the project we had to do. We came up with our plan for the following day and sorted out the questions we needed to ask to do our research and then finished for the night.
We had a really yummy three course sit down meal (all the food was delicious) with some wine on the table followed by a trip to the bar to chat and yet to know everyone.
On the second day we had to get on with our project, which including making some conference calls to people who had been at Hewitt for some time to gather research for the presentation we had to give on Friday. I was quite nervous about making the conference call, but we worked in pairs so we could help each other out. The person we spoke to was really helpful and friendly so I relaxed a bit after we had asked the first few questions.
We also had some activities to do, 2 as a team and 2 as smaller groups within the team. The first team activity was called 'Equilibrium', we all had to balance a see-saw with all of us on, but we could only get on one at a time. We worked really well as a team; (we'd learnt from the task the previous day!) we communicated really well and managed to complete the task, thanks mostly to one of our team members having very strong legs!
The 2 smaller tasks included a physical and a non physical. I took part in the non-physical; we didn't read the instructions fully and ended up doing some parts of the task that didn't earn us any points! So unfortunately we came last. I took photos of the physical task, which was possibly the funniest part of the induction. The team had to get as many members to an island and back, but they had to alternate the order, and they could use some ropes a pulley and a boat. Everything was going really well, one team members had got across and back, there was second team member on the island, and the boat was on the way back to the shore when one of the ropes came untied. They managed to get the boat back to the shore and then two members untied the ropes on each end of the boat (they didn't realise that the other one was untying the rope too!). They all turned their back on the boat to decide what to do, blissfully unaware that they'd untied the rope from both sides of the boat, and the boat floated off into the lake! Luckily the wind was on their side and the boat floated across to the island, where the team member on the island managed to get in the boat but he had no way of getting back! When the time was up, the team member in boat was given an ore to get back. Even though it all went wrong, we still managed to win the task!
The final team task went really well, we managed to finish it within the time and work well as a team, although we learnt that communicating over long distances was quite difficult.
After the tasks, we met up as a team to decide what to do for our presentation. We decided on a structure for the presentation but didn't get much content down before the end of the day so I was quite worried about how we were going to get on the next day.
The evening was concluded with a delicious BBQ and a quiz. The quiz was really well organised, we were split into regional teams, the Birmingham, Bristol and Leeds offices were put together because they are smaller. Unfortunately we came last, but we did get the wooden spoon prize of some chocolate which went down well!
The final day was the day of the presentations. I was quite worried because the day before we hadn't got much done and talking to the other groups; they'd completely finished their presentations! But we all worked really hard in the morning and managed to put together our presentation, including a tree which some of our team put together at 3am in the morning to help exam some of our brief.
The presentation went really well, I was really nervous while we were waiting but everyone, including all the other teams, did a really good job. We decided as a team not to use power point much, the usual way of giving a presentation, and used a few different ways including Hewitt Fortunes (our version of Family Fortunes) and standing up and talking without a slide show. Although this was risky, it paid off and we had some really good feedback from the people who came to watch the presentations.
After all the presentations and feedback, we watched a short video on the funny bits of the 3 days that the facilitators made. It was a really good way to end the induction and after it finished we all got to go home for the weekend!
2 weeks graduate training
The technical graduate training started with battling my way through the London Underground with my big pink suitcase (I was staying overnight for 2weeks!) to the London office. The first day of training was quite good, we had talks on introductions to pensions and investments, which were useful for RPC revision! (RPC stands for Retirement Practice Certificate; we had to do the exam at the end of September, just after joining)
After training, the graduates from the regional offices (Birmingham, Bristol and Leeds) travelled to the first hotel we were staying. The hotel was really good and there was a pub next door so we went there for some tea and a chat.
We met up for breakfast together in the morning and then walked to the office for our ActEd training. The training was quite scary, the trainer told us how much work we should do for the actuarial exams. It was more that we expected (21-24hours per week!) so we were all worried about what was going to happen to our life over the next few years! But the training was also really useful, we got an induction to some of the CT subjects, which I'd never seen before, so I found it really helpful.
The following day we had some more ActEd training and another course following on from what we'd learnt in the morning. When we finished, we headed off to the second hotel of our stay.
For the next week (Thursday-Thursday) we were split up into 2 groups, the Regional offices and Epsom were together, and London and St Albans were together. We had 2 days of excel training, which I really enjoyed although I'd seen some of it before so I thought it could have been a bit shorter, but it was a good refresher and it was really interactive with lots of time to a go at things which was very handy.
We had some more induction training in the second week including some training on calculations that we'd use in the office. On one of the mornings instead of going round the group introducing ourselves, like we'd probably done 10 times in the past week, we made origami animals my zebra and tiger now sit on my desk in the office.
The final Thursday all the grads were put back together for the last 2 days of training. It was good to see the other grads and we had a few drinks on Thursday night to catch up and chat! The last day of training went well, we had one talk which was useful for some RPC revision that hadn't gone so well all week because we'd been staying over in hotels all week and spent the evenings going for tea and chatting!
I really enjoyed the training, it was fun to stay overnight with some of the other grads, we became quite good friends after spending 2 weeks together! I had done some of the training before but I enjoyed refreshing what I'd previously done and spending 2 weeks with the new grads.
Starting in the office
Week 1:
I wasn't that nervous about starting in the office as I did a few internships before. On the first day we (me & Chris the other graduate starting in Birmingham) had a manager chat, where they told us they had high expectations of us and that they had received good feedback about us from the graduate training. I didn't realise the trainers were going to give feedback on us! Although I was pleased the feedback was good because I thought I worked well in the 2 weeks of training. We also went out for lunch on the first day with the rest of the PAS team. I really enjoyed this, it was a good way of catching up with the people I worked with last year and meeting the people who started since in a social environment .
We weren't given much work in the first week because we had Thursday and Friday off (for a study day and the RPC exam) and after all the in house training we only had just over a day left to do some work! I got given some work similar to what I'd done before and remembered quite a lot of it surprisingly!
On the study day I actually managed to do quite a lot of work, I needed to because I hadn't done as much as I thought I would in the 2 weeks of training so I'd spent any free time in the week doing some RPC revision! I found it strange learning lots of facts, dates and acronyms because I'm used to learning methods as I did a straight maths degree. At the end I felt like I'd done quite a lot of preparation for the exam but I still didn't feel confident!
On the day of the RPC exam I was quite nervous, I met up with the others going from Birmingham and we got the train together . The RPC exam went alright, I found it difficult to choose between 2 answers in some of the questions and I don't know if I've passed it or not yet! The rest of the day was really good, I enjoyed seeing everyone from the graduate training again (it had been a week since I'd last seen them!). The afternoon training on legal issues and health & safety finished a lot earlier than I thought so we managed to get a much earlier train and be back in Birmingham for tea!
Week 2
This was our first full week in the office. There's a resource meeting every week to decide who is going to do which pieces of work that needs to be done in the week. The resource manager gave me a list of my work for the week and showed me where I needed to put it on the computer so next week they can see what work I have on. I was given a few things to do, the office has been quite quiet because of people being out on study leave (the summer exams are on at the moment!) so there hasn't been loads for us to do, although I have a research project that I started to do last summer and the on boarding project we were given when we started in the office so I haven't had a time without work yet!
We got to go to our first meeting on Monday too; it was a PAS knowledge exchange meeting, which happen about once a month. All the PAS team go and people talk about any changes or new things coming up and also anything interesting that might be useful to us for adding value to Hewitt. It was quite an informal meeting, and anyone can join in and share their thoughts, which I liked.
The first full week went quite quickly, I was kept pretty busy, especially at the end of the week! We went out for lunch on Friday, and I got invited to some of the other socials happening in the next few months so I feel like I'm settling into the office again.
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