Katja Placement Report

What is your name?
Katja Blank

What is the name of the company/institution you are working at?
Burnley Borough Council – Town Hall

What is your role in the organisation?
I work at the personnel department of the town hall in Burnley. I assist my colleagues concerning the redundancy preparation, litigation and administrative office work.



What are your daily tasks?
My daily tasks are:
• Pick up the post
• Filing, open new litigation files
• Invite people to meetings and advice sessions concerning the redundancy
• Get chances to attend meetings
• Room booking for meetings
• Typing and writing stuff, typical office work

What are your achievements so far?
My achievements are that I’m able to work in a foreign country, So my English knowledge is probably not as bad as i thought ;-). Here I have normal working days as in Germany. I can handle my tasks, have conversations with colleagues which I can understand and follow them. Everybody is friendly to me and accept me as I am.

What were the challenges and how did you manage them?
My big challenge at work was to make or pick up phone calls. At the beginning it was hard to understand all accents, but now everything is fine. I’m able to handle those situations.

What are your plans for the rest of the placement to get the most out of it?
I will try to start more conversations with my colleagues to improve my English skills. In addition I want to have more impressions how they work in a personnel depart in England because I need more work experience concerning my occupation.

How is your cooperation with colleagues and management in your placement organisation?
Everybody is very friendly. Unfortunately they don’t have so much time to support me or give me specific tasks. I hope I will got more involved in the future. But I have to say because of the redundancy problem there aren’t many tasks for placements at the moment. That’s the problem.

How do you experience to speak another language at work?
My experience is very good concerning my language abilities at my placement. Everybody can understand ma and I’m able to understand my colleagues as well. If I would get the chance to work abroad again after my stay, I would take it because that’s the best way of improving my English skills.



What have you learnt so far?
I learnt that I can be more confident concerning my skills and that my English is not as bad as I thought. I can take challenges wherever I want and the best thing is I met a lot of nice people, which I like very much. Last but not least I want to say that I enjoy the stay very much and it helps me a lot. Thank you very much! ;-)