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At Lolly, we believe that giving young people meaningful workplace experience is one of the best ways to help them explore future career paths and develop new skills. Earlier this month, we welcomed Alex to the business for three days, giving her the opportunity to spend time across multiple departments and gain first-hand insight into life at a technology company serving the hospitality industry.
From software development and project management to payments, finance and marketing, she experienced the variety of roles that come together to make Lolly successful. In this blog, she shares her reflections, highlights and key takeaways from her time with the team:
Day 1
My first day started with a general tour of the company looking at the different departments and meeting the staff within the company. I gathered a general understanding and overview of what Lolly does, and how it integrates AI software with different technology in hospitality services. I began in Development with Sean, who helped me understand and learn what they do as well as showing me the different software and AI that levels up their work. Through observing and questioning different aspects of their work, I gained a higher understanding of their role and learnt how they fix issues and self-improve all their products.
I then moved onto looking at the project management and the systems and software they use to track and manage each project. I had the opportunity to see them on a go-live day when their products had been installed and set up on a site, so I could view how they solved problems and completed their projects. I particularly enjoyed looking at this department and I had a lot more knowledge and interest in the process than before. We discussed the various upcoming projects, current tasks and successes of their launches and projects of recent, to help me discover more on the responsibilities and roles in project management.
Later in the day I was introduced to the payments department where they sort and organise the payment machines in Lolly’s technology. An in-depth conversation provided insight into how the machines are carefully tracked and how they work through all stages of delivery up until installment.
Overall, the first day was very welcoming, and provided me with different knowledge on various departments in the company, helping me to understand Lolly’s influence in the hospitality industry. Although the systems and roles were complicated to grasp, the detailed conversation with different staff through questioning developed my knowledge and provided me with all the information of their roles. This day enabled me to find my interests and skills and apply them to a working experience to assess potential future pathways that I may want to take.
Day 2
During my second day I was assigned to marketing where they greeted me with a detailed planned list of activities and tasks to follow during the day to provide me more on board and active work. I joined work experience with the interest of marketing as a future career choice and this day helped me to see what a potential working day is like. I met with Eloise Churchman and Glen Wisbey, who ran through a meeting discussing different projects, marketing tools, adverts, and magazines they have designed as well as a general overview of what marketing does and how they have adapted it to their business. I looked at their brand guide and how they have assigned colour palettes, design logos, presentation methods and other factors that should be considered when displaying a positive image of their brand. They showed me the consideration and dedication behind presenting a positive, efficient external image of the company which reflects their internal effort. A more practical learning experience for me was when I had to design an advertisement of their product SnapServe Pro using Canva. I was able to design a page advert for the SnapServe Pro with guidance and help to improve it to a similar level of their other adverts to keep to the brand image they have created.
I specifically enjoyed this day the most due to the on-board interactive activities and learning more about a role that I feel more suited to. It gave me more insight of the presented brand image and the thoughts behind all everyday marketing methods that I can see. Figuring out Canva gave me a new skill set that I can take away with me, and I gained greater knowledge of marketing within a company.
Day 3
My final day of work experience was spent with finance as I got to run through the systems and software they used and manage to make reports and overviews of the company. I saw how the technology had progressed overtime and how they programmed things before and after the use of AI prompts. This was a new department that I didn’t know much about, but came away with a better general idea of what they do. This was then followed when I rejoined marketing and joined a meeting discussing their upcoming Expo event and designs of layouts, board displays, technology shown and a PowerPoint of the display. Ultimately this work experience has been incredibly useful and a great opportunity for me as it levelled up my understanding of how different areas and departments perform their different roles to integrate the business into one efficient and high scale company.
