During my first days, I was shown the whole internal infrastructure and met a lot of team members for little one-on-one coffee breaks. Everyone was interested in me and my story and gave me a warm welcome. Even colleagues from ERNI Switzerland, ERNI Slovakia, ERNI Romania and ERNI Philippines treated me as a longtime coworker in the company. I was impressed – and overwhelmed – by all the resources, processes and tools that are used by ERNIans in their everyday work. But I got used to it over the following weeks. As I was able to see the slides from the last events and townhall meetings, my view of the company was rounded off: very open, very transparent, but also very objective and target-oriented. In addition, I got a mentor for the first weeks that helped me to understand project structures, showed me the work of different people units and also told me about the best places for lunch and coffee in the area around the Munich office.
My first consulting task was taking part in several bid processes. Here I contributed specific business expertise and planned the development of a greenfield B2B eCommerce project together with my colleagues. We had workshops with our customer to clarify the scope of the project, estimated the work packages and created a proper roadmap with our ERNI Software Delivery Life Cycle. In addition, I took over the role of Product Owner for a business intelligence project about enterprise resource monitoring.
Employee development is a big topic at ERNI. There are big international events, certifications, LinkedIn Learning full access, internal online training, experience sharing and learning circles and your superior is planning your future development together with you directly from the start. ERNI Germany is a fast-growing subsidiary of the ERNI group and goals and management decisions are communicated and discussed with the whole team.
From the very beginning, my people unit leader encouraged me to deepen my knowledge in agile development and requirements processes and additionally aim for certifications for my skills Instantly, I was sent to a preparation course and then passed my official certificate as a certified professional for user experience (ISO 9241). So besides my mandate, I am responsible for one of our internal learning circles and I am part of a newly established practice area where we share trends, best practices and knowledge among people of different business units.
It feels great that there is almost no “newbie” phase in the company and you get integrated very quickly.
The Munich office is modern, chic and very well equipped. No one has an assigned desk but takes a seat in a room that fits the needs for the day. Because of the pandemic, only a few colleagues were coming to the office in my first months and everyone was encouraged to work from home. The equipment and infrastructure provided make it possible to work from anywhere in the world. Most important are the needs of our customers but besides that, ERNIans are very free in organizing their work, their holidays and personal development.
I was able to get insights into projects of colleagues even from other people units: From smaller consulting projects for small but also very big companies, to software development projects where bigger ERNI teams are engaged to create a whole shoring centre for a customer in Slovakia. This helped me a lot in understanding our services and self-image and becoming a representative of our company to our customers but also to my friends, my family and my business network.
At that point after my first months at ERNI, I have to say thank you. Thank you for the warm welcome, for the trust, the respect, the support and the enthusiasm. What is next? I am really looking forward to the coming year: finalization of my first projects, new mandates, further personal development, and a really good time with my colleagues. I am excited and want the company and myself to grow, and I am keen on visiting other ERNI locations, domestic and international, maybe even on other continents? I can’t imagine that I will become bored one day.