Time flies, and I’ve now completed my third rotation in my trainee year. During this period, I spent about eight weeks in the company’s marketing and communications department. It was an incredibly fun experience since all of this is completely new to me. You don’t learn much about marketing in an engineering program, so it was interesting to see the marketing and communications work up close.
The marketing and communications department at Thomas Concrete Group consists of Sofia Arvidsson Shultz, the Brand & Marketing Communications Manager, and Louisa Thomas, the Marketing Communications Coordinator. My days in this rotation were spent following their work with branding and marketing planning, attending meetings, helping with press releases, and managing some of my own marketing projects.
One of my tasks during this period was to conduct interviews with employees from the different countries where Thomas Concrete Group operates. So I interviewed and compiled interviews with colleagues from Sweden, Germany, USA, Norway and Poland. It was both fun and interesting to hear about their experiences. Many things are quite similar between the different countries, but there are also differences in working methods. For example, in the USA, they have third-party testers for the concrete deliveries, while in Sweden, we have our own concrete testers. This is something I hadn’t thought much about before, but both methods have their pros and cons and bring different challenges for the teams on-site.
One thing Sofia said on my first day was, “You’ll notice that the work here in the marketing department is very varied,” and I can definitely agree with that now. There were many days that felt quite unique. For example, I got to be part of two (!) different film shoots during these weeks, one for a commercial and one for the company’s Christmas greeting.
During this time, I also worked on marketing a scholarship that the Family Thomas Foundation awards for the best thesis in sustainable concrete construction (Tip for all masterstudents at Nordic universities!). I also made a social media plan, worked on the website, and did many other fun things. But I also had time to enjoy the Christmas holidays.
Starting today, I’m moving on to my fourth rotation, where I’ll spend a few weeks at C-lab. C-Lab is the company’s center for research, development, and laboratory testing – something I’m really looking forward to!
// Clara
