Global Continuous Improvement Specialist - Placement Review

My role involved working on 2 cross-functional Lean Six Sigma projects within the e-commerce space of the business, as well as helping the wider continuous improvement team with initiatives such as team events, team shadowing etc. One of the great things about this job is it never gets stale - you are always learning something new and so it's hard to encompass the role in a list of day-to-day responsibilites, but typical tasks you might be getting up to include
- Meetings with stakeholders to define project requirements
- Data analysis to understand depth of the problem
- Using Lean Six Sigma tools to analyse and understand trends and root causes

Overall I would say yes. TJX gives you support but overall your projects are your responsibility and the results you get are directly correlated with what you put in.

Somewhere I really struggled with before doing this placement was definitely my confidence skills and presentation skills and this job has exposed me to these things a lot more than I've ever been used to which has actually reframed my perspective in these areas and really helped me develop these skills as in this role stakeholder management and presentation skills are key to push projects forward. I've also been exposed to many different areas of the business which has helped my general business knowledge of how a business works, as well as excel skills and some PowerBI skills through data analysis. Additionally Lean Six Sigma training has been really interesting and I've learnt lots of skills that will stay with me my whole career on meeting facilitation, and tools such as FMEA and 5 why analysis

For the first 3 months, me and the other placement in the function had weekly 2-on-2 meetings with both of us and our managers, and throughout the year I had 1-2-1 meetings with my manager about anything on my mind. The culture at TJX also means that people are really kind and respectful so so many people have been so supportive throughout our journey so it's not limited to only your managers but also the wider company. However I feel like support from upper management was lacking at times, which with the nature of project work in a global company you really need exec support to push projects through which felt like roadblocks at times.

The company culture at TJX is genuinely fantastic. Before I started my placement I imagined working a corporate job would be a lot more cut-throat, working 60 hour weeks and being shouted at constantly! But TJX has proved what I imagined completely wrong. The work-life balance for a start is really good. 25 days of PTO plus sick days when needed. The ability to work from home whenever you need to. Summer Fridays with a 1pm finish from May-August. Flexible hours throughout the day. It's a company and role where your manager is not looking through your shoulder 24/7 which really gives you as a placement more independence and responsibility. Additionally the people at the office are really kind and respectful. I would say the social opportunities are a little bit lacking within TJX as I feel like the company is mainly catered to people with families and being outside london. But there are a few different opportunities.

I enjoyed the placement thoroughly. I feel like I not only developed some really key skills that I personally needed to work on, but also discovered a lot about what work I do and don't want to do in the future. One of the great things about continuous improvement project work is it will challenge you and will stretch you in ways that you might not necessarily expect. And as it is such a mixed bag of responsibilities you get exposure to so many areas that you can really find what you do and don't like, and identify where are your strengths and weaknesses.

Yes