Genesys Works Twin Cities is grateful to have more than 200 supervisors in our network of devoted IT and business professionals that support and mentor our young professionals. In our November installment of the 2019-2020 Making Internships Meaningful series, we want to recognize Ming Tan, a supervisor at CaringBridge, for his big picture mentorship and guidance for his intern, Meghan Kuether.

From the start, Ming highlighted CaringBridge’s mission and purpose so that Meghan understood her value add to the organization — and to her community. Ming knew that it was important for Meghan to see how her daily work connected to the company’s big picture, and for that reason, he made sure that the organization’s mission — to help and support people going through health journeys — was front and center rather than abstract. As a quality assurance intern for the website, Meghan explained, “Ming helped me understand that every issue I find is one less issue that the users have to deal with.” This understanding of how her work fits into the big picture is a critical component of a meaningful internship for Meghan, and all Genesys Works interns. 

Ming builds the infrastructure for success — and lets Meghan do the rest. In addition to helping Meghan understand her value as it relates to the mission, Ming intentionally structured Meghan’s onboarding process so that she would feel welcome and have the tools to succeed. Specifically, in the first weeks of her internship, Ming introduced Meghan to the team, assigned her a mentor, provided insight on her workload for the year and the cadence of her job, and set job and growth expectations. Ming explained, “I like to define the ‘what’ (like expectations, end goals, and vision), and let my employees to determine the ‘how’ to achieve them. Throughout the process, I will provide feedback, ask questions, remove obstacles, and hold the team accountable for their tasks.” This purposeful planning on Ming’s part allows for Meghan to put skills like initiative and communication into practice.

We are grateful to have supervisors like Ming who help our interns understand the big picture and take meaningful steps to set their interns up for success. Way to go, Ming!

Genesys Works Twin Cities has more than 310 amazing young professionals in our program – engaged and motivated interns working towards career success in their future. For our second Making Internships Meaningful feature of the 2019-2020 internship year, we are recognizing Maria Marin Mena, a senior at East Ridge High School and Andersen Corporation intern. Maria’s supervisor, Charissa Norling, nominated Maria because of her commitment to her own professional development — in both technical and soft skills. 

In the first three months of her internship, Maria has developed strong project management skills and has already been able to take her internship to the next level. In her role at Andersen, Maria gets to work on a number of different projects for numerous teams, and according to Charissa, she is “killing it!” How is she doing this? Maria utilizes project timelines to manage deadlines and provides formal and informal status reports to everyone involved. Because Maria demonstrated such great initiative and work ethic in her assigned projects, Charissa felt ready to give her a project of her own to manage. Maria has been tasked with implementing enhancements and new functionality to Andersen’s Affiliate Web Portal – Adoption Platform (WalkMe). She has taken complete ownership of WalkMe, working with teams to gather information like requirements, implementing the changes, and updating all involved groups along the way.  

In addition to her project management work, Maria has demonstrated curiosity and interest in learning more about Andersen as a company. Maria knows that in order to get the most out of her Genesys Works experience, she can take the initiative to ask questions and show interest in lots of different areas of business. According to Charissa, Maria “has taken the lead on meeting with individuals across the company to learn what different roles are out there in hopes that certain areas might spark interest that we can try and development her internship around.” Charissa sees Maria’s engagement in her verbal questions but also in important non-verbal cues, such as nodding, smiling, and eye contact. These all communicate Maria’s willingness to learn and her genuine interest in her work and coworkers. 

We are proud to have young professionals who use their unique talents and what they learned in summer training to bring value to our corporate partners and enhance their own professional skills. Keep up the great work, Maria!