Rotation Planning – a Time full of Possibilities
Just recently, the entire group of Cross Border trainees went through arguably the most exciting period over the course of the year – the rotation planning period. The rotation planning period is a time of endless possibilities. Back in February, we received a list of 29 available positions all around the globe. The pool contained destinations such as São Paulo, Miami as well as Johannesburg and covered all important business areas including Operations, Sales and Business Development amongst others.
Needless to say that the choices were plentiful – which made the process of picking the right position a rather tricky one. After evaluating the offered assignments as well as the personal preferences, each trainee had to hand in a list of three positions. Being in the first year of the program and therefore having an abundance of potential options to choose from, I struggled considerably with my final decision and ended up changing my list of favorite assignments more than once.
Luckily, a couple of weeks after the pool of positions was released, I received the information that an additional position in the Hub Operations segment in our management region Europe had become available. Receiving this information was a twist of fate and completely changed my mind. Personally, I knew early on in my decision-making process that I would definitely like to deepen my knowledge and experience in the complex field of Operations.
Coming from a rather operational background and enjoying the link between shop floor and management, I was sure that one of my remaining two assignments should cover this particular business area. The new assignment that had become available in the Hub Operations team combined all my preferences perfectly. I knew that in this position, I would have the chance to work on a variety of European-wide projects and get to know processes in different Customer Service Centers throughout Europe.
In the coming days, I therefore decided to list the position in the Hub Operations department as my number one choice and finally handed in my three selections. The subsequent waiting time was very stressful and nerve-racking since the list of assignments handed in did not automatically lead to an employment. However, at the end of this week-long selection process I felt perfectly happy once I received the final rotation decision: I had been assigned to my desired position!
All in all, the rotation planning was a very exciting period and I have to say that I am really happy how everything played out in the end. Even though I still have three months left here in Stockholm, I am already looking forward to join the Hub Operations team in Frankfurt as of September. I am sure that getting the chance to work with different Customer Service Centers throughout the Europe region will be a very interesting as well as rewarding learning opportunity.
In the upcoming blog entry, I will talk about one of the many challenging assignments that I worked and will work on during my time here in Sweden. I hope to see you around!