How can we make the best out of the crisis? We are not allowed to go to our offices, events and classes were canceled and we can’t travel nor visit our loved ones. So how can we still be productive, learn and get professional experience at the same time while staying at home? Of course, doing a virtual internship!
ZN values its Hyperlearners – that’s how it calls its interns – and provides them with the best professional experience in the digital world.
Hyperlearners not only contribute to the overall growth of ZN but also to achieving the overall goals and objectives of the organization.
For the past years, interns have been increasing the culture and values at ZN by engaging with the concept of Hyperthinking.
COVID-19 crisis has changed the way teams are working, as everyone had to adjust to remote work and turn into a virtual working mode, remains a question between the recruiters: what will the internship program look like from now on?
For ZN this was not a problem, but a challenge and opportunity to grow towards its ideal model: a truly digital home. The internship program is running and getting more applications than ever. It is providing students the opportunity to an enriching experience by giving them the chance to do an internship virtually from anywhere in the world.
The key to a successful remote internship? Communicating digitally of course! And what does ZN do best? Digital communication 😊
For that, we use online tools – Microsoft Teams, Skype, Zoom and social media – so that the Hyperlearners can stay connected with their mentors and the rest of the team throughout the day.
Besides this, as we don’t have the opportunity to get some drinks anymore, we created a ZN own virtual Hyperdrinks, every Friday after work to relax from a long week and have a virtual drink with each other. To be honest, there was a lot of learning present as every meeting we had 2 hours cultural quizzes – Yes! You ‘heard’ well, 2 hours but we couldn’t stop, we were having too much fun!
We wish all our friends, clients, partners and online community a relaxing weekend! 🌳
— ZN (@ZNConsulting) April 17, 2020
The ZN team ended the week with virtual drinks and Kahoot team quizzes.
May you all have a support system like ours during these weird times. #lockdown #QuarantineLife #teamspirit pic.twitter.com/Rzf3oiutuL
These gatherings have made our relationships stronger and the team is more connected than ever.
Now getting back to Hyperlearners: to make sure everyone is feeling okay and to stay motivated, we have a weekly meeting with only the interns. In the meeting each one talks about what they did during the week, discuss workload and training and support each other with everyone working from a different country. (We also do some gossip sometimes but that’s a secret between us!)
If it wasn’t for this virtual internship I wouldn’t have learned to work with a variety of digital tools and social media, I wouldn’t have prepared virtual events and I wouldn’t have faced the biggest challenge of all: Keep myself motivated while working from my home in Portugal. I feel more prepared and stronger to face all future challenges that are awaiting me.
We may not have a physical networking session after our #Hyperchat event but we can always have a virtual option🍹🍻 #TogetherWhileApart #SocialDistancing #DistantSocialising pic.twitter.com/PhNYd2YAHl
— ZN (@ZNConsulting) April 29, 2020
Working from home is a challenge but it’s also an experience that will make you learn a lot of things by yourself, both soft and hard skills. You will need to prepare your own office so that you can feel motivated. You need to manage your time better – make a schedule and keep your agenda real. You will learn what the best way is for you to separate your personal life to your professional life – I know sometimes it’s just one more email but you need to make sure you have the best of both worlds 😉
To sum it up, all of these complete, happy, learning, fulfilled feelings were provided by ZN that is always helping with personal and professional problems, taking time to explain how we need to do things. We may not be physically together but the ZN team is very connected and shows us our value and how much our contributions mean. Thank you for always being there, even miles away.
I can’t wait to come to Brussels and meet my colleagues in person but until then, we are doing our virtual internships safe and learning more than ever!
Yes, this is as cool as it seems. Are you joining?
By Mariana Antunes, Hyperlearner
