Alba Sanchez Nieto on the first half of her traineeship at SuccessDay: ‘On to more knowledge, tickets, and authority’
The first half of the Workday traineeship of six young professionals at SuccessDay has come to an end. In this blog, one of them, Alba Sanchez Nieto, looks back on this instructive and exciting pressure cooker period. In addition, she is already looking ahead to what awaits her in the second half of her traineeship. “I’m ready to go. I’m making so much progress here!”
Alba, along with the other participants in her cohort, started the 1-year Workday traineeship at SuccessDay in April 2023. “There is a great need for business consultants with both HR and IT knowledge, who can advise and support organizations in their HRIT implementation. And Workday is pretty trending when it comes to HRIT software. So when I got the chance to develop myself in this area at SuccessDay, I grabbed it with both hands,” explains Alba who was born in Spain, but has been living in the Netherlands for several years now.
High on her wish list is learning to speak Dutch better, because she is determined to live and work here for the next coming years. She wants to ask the assistance of her SuccessDay colleagues by speaking as much Dutch as possible in the workplace to her and her non-Dutch speaking trainees in the future. Furthermore, she will soon start a Dutch course together with the other non-Dutch-speaking trainees. “I am very motivated to improve my Dutch. I occasionally listen to Dutch podcasts and want to watch more Dutch series. The fact that my boyfriend is Flemish also helps!”
Alba is having a great time at SuccessDay. Over the past six months, she has been present at various SuccessDay Days, where staff from home and abroad come together to get to know each other better and in which they are updated on the latest trends and developments within the field and the ins and outs of the fast-growing company from Eindhoven. In addition, she attended the first Workday training course, as well as training in soft skills, such as Self-Reflection, Effective Communication, Self-Awareness, and Collaboration.
More knowledge, more tickets, more autonomy
“During such a traineeship, you develop at a record pace. I’m amazed at how much progress I’ve made. Learning and working at the same time is ideal for me. Not only my knowledge increases, I also handle more and more tickets about a variety of issues. Moreover, I am increasingly doing this with autonomy. Although it is nice that as a trainee you can always fall back on the knowledge and expertise of an experienced colleague,” Alba explains.
In recent months, she has been involved in AMS projects at Sharp (Business Process Redesign), BasicFit (Job Catalogue) and LeanIX (Advanced Compensation Configuration). “SuccessDay offers various forms of support, including Smooth Landing shortly after the go-live of an HRIT system, as well as AMS, where various forms of support and maintenance are provided. Before I started my traineeship, I had never heard of HRIT and Workday, but I had always been triggered by innovation and technology. I never thought that after a few months I would find the technical part – the AMS part – the most interesting,” Alba laughs.
Workday-Wikipedia
Still, that’s exactly the area she’d most like to specialize in in the near future. “What I like most is puzzling over finding the best solution for the customer. I like using the Workday Wikipedia, the Workday community, to help me find ways of helping the client and figuring out how to configure things.” Incidentally, she is also open to delving into other HRIT packages. “Workday is currently the most popular among large, global companies, but the other vendors are also not sitting still and continue to innovate. SuccessDay works platform-agnostically and always looks for the best solution for each situation, segment and company.”
One of the most interesting projects she’s done has been helping to create the What’s New report, in which SuccessDay breaks down the key changes and new features for the new release of Workday for its customers. For the report for the release in September 2023, the trainees supported Peter Veldman, HRIS Consultant at SuccessDay. For the next release, Alba and her colleagues will be able to manage the report themselves. “It’s great that we get so much freedom and responsibility!”, says Alba.
Trip to Valencia
The absolute highlight so far is the trip to Valencia that she recently made with all her SuccessDay colleagues. The fast-growing company organizes a staff weekend every year and this year Valencia was the destination. “We had a great time in Valencia: beautiful weather, good food, a lot of nice activities and much fun. I got to know everyone much better, including the new employees and the people who work abroad. So valuable!”
Alba is bursting with plans for the future. In addition to the Dutch course, she can’t wait to learn new modules from Workday. There are still several training sessions in the pipeline. Alba has opted for a training in Compensation, which she was intrigued by in the beginning, and still is. And after that? She is not sure yet. “But what I do know is that I get the most joy from customer contact. Helping people really move forward, that makes my heart beat faster.”
