My traineeship at Valveres

Vasileios Koumpoulis

As of writing this post, my work placement at Valveres is coming to an end. Detailing my work placement experience, I could sum it up as a highly pleasant experience. While working on my assigned placement at Valveres I always felt welcome and always had a helping hand offered whenever help was needed. My project never seemed rushed, either to never completion or hastily put together. The entire experience seemed well thought out and can be shown by the material which was produced at the end of the work placement. While working at Valveres I was tasked with completing a CSR Mapping project. This project consisted of compiling various CSR related frameworks, breaking them down as assigned and at the end for a ‘database’ to be made which compiled all of the frameworks and broke them down into categories.

“While working on my assigned placement at Valveres I always felt welcome and always had a helping hand offered whenever help was needed.”

The whole process seemed smooth and, even though the position was remote, I never felt alone, as any queries or issues I had were resolved as soon as possible after communicating them. During my placement, meetings were had fairly often, either with management, or board meetings consisting of the whole Valveres team. The first meetings were mainly progress meetings and communications on how the project is going and how it could proceed. Board meetings were the place in which I was able to show off everything that I had been working on since I have been with the company. Aside of my CSR Framework Mapping project, I was assigned with helping the marketing department with anything needed. My initial introduction to the marketing department was being tasked with market research of other companies operating on the same field, in the same country. Through this task I was able to see how similar companies have been marketing themselves, how that is compared to Valveres and I was able to pick out what was working, what was not and what improvements could be made. After market research was conducted, I was able to propose changes and point out what direction Valveres could move to. I was also able to help out with content scheduling and ideas. This was done by proposing a post scheduling platform to be used by the company, and through research I was able to come up with post ideas for future use.

Overall, my experience with Valveres was highly enjoyable. It never felt boring or mundane doing research for CSR Frameworks, as there were quite a few to breakdown and the research felt challenging in a positive way. As a change of pace, I was able to work on the marketing side of my work placement which help keep things different and more interesting, as I was able to swich through tasks as long as I was able to meet the agreed deadlines. I believe that this work placement was well planned out as it played to my strengths, which are in research and marketing. Looking back on the work placement, the work completed and the outcome, which was achieved, I am in the pleasant position to say that it seems both parties are happy with the result.

“During my work placement I was able to learn a lot more about CSR, how it works, how it is implemented and how it impacts companies, the planet and society”

CSR was something that I had touched upon during my studies at TAMK university. During my work placement I was able to learn a lot more about CSR, how it works, how it is implemented and how it impacts companies, the planet and society. I Learned how it is to keep down a stable office job, as just graduating from university. A full position was something that I had not yet had the opportunity to work on. I learned a lot about how a company functions from within, and through my marketing tasks I got to implement a lot of the knowledge which I had received from my studies, into real world scenarios.

On my side I would like to thank management, and Valveres as a whole, for the opportunity handed to me and I am hoping that I completed my tasks to their expectations!