My STEP Signature Project was a finance internship for Johnson & Johnson’s Medtech business, DePuy Synthes.  In this role, I supported senior financial analysts in sales reporting and gross profit analysis for J&J orthopedic products.  One of my projects during the internship was compiling a document that maps the different SKU numbers for each orthopedic product and variation that DePuy Synthes sells.  Another project was compiling a travel and entertainment expense report model for our NA sales team.

While completing my signature project, a view of the world that changed would have to be the importance of communication in the workplace.  Prior to this internship, my previous internship had been fully remote with the only connections developed were the three within my department.  After accepting my role at J&J, it was stressful to imagine whether my technical skills aligned with what talent they were looking to hire.  I did not want to be demanded to do a job that I did not possess the skill set for.  However, I found that through communication and relationship building, that is how one develops both their business acumen but also their technical skillset.  In other words, by creating relationships with employees at J&J, I was able to grow both my knowledge of the business and the financial knowhow to accomplish what is asked of me.

This importance in communication and relationship building was bred from the culture that J&J cultivates in all of their offices.  Despite being broken up into the MedTech and Pharmaceutical sectors with multiple offices representing each sector, Johnson & Johnson is a big proponent for having their employees develop both their business acumen as well as their network.  Immediately after starting my internship, I was able to set up one on one meetings with each member of the finance department at the Warsaw location.  I was able to learn much about the different aspects of finance at Warsaw that occur for DePuy Synthes.  Leveraging these relationships, I was able to develop the more technical skills required of me in this position that these employees had all used at one point in their careers.

As my internship progressed, I was reaching out to more employees outside of the Warsaw office as well as outside the MedTech sector.  This allowed me to grow my business acumen for J&J as a whole and how the company operates.  In order to turn my internship into a full-time role, it requires knowledge of the general business and displaying the capability to grow and continue one’s curiosity.  An employee is stagnant in their learning when they reduce themselves solely to the projects they’ve been assigned.  It is doubtful to think these relationships would’ve been built if J&J did not promote the importance of opening lines of communication outside of direct projects for interns.  It is also worth noting that this importance stretches to full-time analysts as well.  Even seasoned employees at the company are urged to continue networking with their business partners and younger analysts.  

Being able to communicate with employees my age as well as older analysts proved to be beneficial in mapping out the level of knowledge I should have as an intern.  Many were able to provide advice on career progression within J&J and useful opportunities to look out for both as an intern and full-time employee.  As a result, I could adjust my learning accordingly and tackle side projects as well as educational sessions that could develop me into a more valuable asset to the company.  Without the advice of my colleagues, my internship would not have been as fruitful and I would not have been able to create good corporate habits for life after college.

This change is valuable to my life as it is the crux of career progression.  As a corporate finance employee, I can no longer look at the position as one solely crunching numbers and independent work.  Even if I am not communicating with colleagues on a project, there is still much that they can provide as far as learning goes.  Even developing a relationship with a manager at a different office location could prove to be a good reference when I am looking to switch locations myself.  The learning I can seek out on my own will only help me grow so far, however by having those lines of dialogue with employees it can assist me with one of two avenues.  One of which is personal development, in which learning the aspect of a colleagues life will help me understand what opportunities and ambitions lie outside the workplace.  The other avenue is professional development which can be simplified as skill improvement and career progression.  Learning from my employees will craft the technical skills I need to master the role I’m currently in and starting building a foundation for my next role.  I am also able to learn what opportunities lie at my place of work and can map out chances for promotion or lateral movements.  Whichever the case may be, being educated by co-workers will ultimately provide some level of development in the overall goal to achieve a fulfilling career balanced with an active life outside the workplace.