How I dived into a mine of opportunities during my internship with Piramal Group -By Siwalik Mishra from SCMHRD Pune

Having worked in the services industry earlier, I always aspired to work for a products based company to get to learn the best of both worlds. Piramal Group, being a global conglomerate was naturally on my aspirational list of companies. It was a great opportunity altogether to work in the Consumer Products Division, the OTC-Pharma division of Piramal that has some iconic brands in its kitty like Saridon and Polycrol. Moreover, Piramal Group has consistently been among the top companies to work for in India owing to its work culture, and that drove me further to work with the group. So, here is my internship experience with Piramal Group.

The selection for Piramal Launch Pad 2020, the flagship summer internship program for Piramal Group was through campus. It comprised of an aptitude test followed by a group discussion and personal interview. Overall, the process of selection was smooth and seamless.

Virtual mode, not a barrier!

Owing to the pandemic, the internship was purely conducted virtually. We were virtually onboarded and interacted with the team through sessions on Webex and Bluejeans. Moreover, it was a boon in disguise as the virtual mode offered a plethora of opportunities to learn through the video sessions with experts and seasoned industry professionals.

The team organized virtual learning sessions with leaders, and professionals every week that kept us engaged and motivated. The speakers’ words of motivation and personal anecdotes, really boosted my morale and propelled me in putting all efforts into my project.

An absolute dynamic project

I worked as a Human Resources Intern in the Consumer Products Division of Piramal Group. My project involved integrating and digitizing learning plans for talent in the Consumer Products Division. The project was an amalgamation of talent management, performance management, and learning & development processes at Piramal. 

Being an out-and-out live project, it offered me unprecedented exposure in terms of learning not just the nuances of processes, but actual methods of execution in real-time. The project involved a diverse set of deliverables ranging from the creation of internal communication to frameworks for assessment and actual adoption.

Over the course of my internship with the Piramal group, I had to work on multiple deliverables that had dynamic and ever-evolving changes, which naturally made me work upon my agility. Little hurdles and bottlenecks in my deliverables made me more resilient in attempting to solve the problems. Moreover, I picked up the ability to constantly learn and unlearn things from the guidance I received from my mentor. Interacting and learning from multiple stakeholders and concerned authorities helped me enhance my networking skills as well.  

A company of strong culture, values and ethics

Being a newbie in the HR domain, it was my mission to make the most of learning through the interaction and feedback sessions with my mentor. I succeeded to a great extent in doing so as my mentor constantly guided me and provided all kinds of support in terms of any resources I required for my analysis or referring me to professionals who could help me with my deliverables. These sessions encouraged me to think beyond the obvious and led me to come up with innovative turnkey solutions at the end.

When I reflect back on my internship experience with Piramal today in retrospect, I can fully relate my time and work with the Piramal values. First, I leveraged the knowledge of my mentors, guides, and peers with the intent to constantly innovate. Then I carved my mind to be action-oriented and create value, innate with values. And finally, I tried to inculcate care in the deliverables for my stakeholders and strived to create an impact with the project at hand. Hence, it would be a great opportunity if I get to work with the company in the future for a full-time role.

Little things that matter

I remember how I along with my fellow interns created the Lockdown Twist video with assistance from the Launch Pad team, an engaging video that talked about how the interns were acing the virtual mode of internship, which was a great success. I was a part of the ideation and storyboarding team and helped ideate to pass the object challenge. It was a lot of fun to collaborate and work on a fun project with likeminded people, who eventually became my friends and guided me with my project as well.