Douwe Clarijs on his Workday traineeship at SuccessDay: “I am always motivated to be good at what I do”
A new group of trainees started at SuccessDay in April of this year. The young professionals will learn the finer details of the HRIT profession – and of Workday in particular – and immediately put their new-found knowledge into practice with prominent clients. In this blog, we introduce our new talent Douwe Clarijs to you.
Douwe (26) was educated bilingually and after completing his IT propaedeutic, decided that he wanted to focus more on the human side of things. He therefore chose to follow a bachelor’s degree in International Human Resource Management, including the honours program Creativity in Finance & Management, both at Saxion University of Applied Sciences. He followed an internship at Shimano Europe Group, after which he also graduated there and then started working (part-time) as a Human Resources Administrator.
He first came across SuccessDay when he became involved with the second phase of the implementation of Workday while working at Shimano. SuccessDay helped with the aftercare and maintenance of the system after going live. The more people he got to know there, the more enthusiastic he became about the Eindhoven-based company. When he happened to see a job vacancy, he decided to apply. “They gave me feedback that I still lacked some experience for the position, but that they wanted to talk to me about their upcoming Workday traineeship, which could be something for me. I was interested straight away and before I knew it, we had had three phone conversations within the space of a few hours. Of course, I still had to run things by Shimano, but they also recognized that this was a great opportunity for me.”
Comfortable right from the start
His CV was a perfect fit for SuccessDay’s field of business: the coming together of HR and IT. Douwe also sees that he can continue his professional development in the traineeship. “I love learning new things. There are so many training courses on offer here, you take on different roles with interesting customers and the experienced SuccessDay consultants also provide interesting internal training courses. There is even a coach available who can help with your personal development. A traineeship is perfect for me, because I have an enormous drive to be good at what I do, and here they train you up to speed in record time.”
Furthermore, according to Douwe, the terms of employment are excellent at SuccessDay. “Where else would you get an unlimited number of vacation days? You get so much freedom here, which of course goes hand in hand with responsibility. And, last but not least, the people who work here are really great. I feel like I can really be myself here. During the job interview with Marco, we discovered that we play the same games, like the same music and enjoy the same sports. So it felt comfortable, right from the start.”
Ahead of the rest
With his previous experience with Workday at Shimano, Douwe is a little ahead of the other trainees. He also started at SuccessDay in January, although the traineeship only began in April. After a three-week vacation to recharge his batteries after graduating, he got to work for another customer – Enza – with change support earlier this year. “They use Workday there too. It was good to look around at how the system will be used there and I was able to work on the development of training material and picking up tickets during the Smooth Landing. This was a very easily accessible way of getting to know the system”.
Before the traineeship began, he was asked not to give too much away during the first few weeks in the group, so that the other trainees could make their own discoveries. “Of course, they asked me lots of questions and asked me to help them once they realized I’d had a head-start. But I deliberately tried to stay in the background. And if I did help, it felt good because I like to help people get ahead, it fits with who I am. It’s great to be able to see the growth of so many trainees up close.”
Not a piece of cake
The best thing to date for Douwe was the trip to Antwerp at the end of April. “We all stayed in an Airbnb and spent four whole days working on a client case, with SuccessDay playing the role of client. The case was based on an HCM training course on Workday from the previous week. I can’t say it was a piece of cake for me, but it was a cake I had baked before, so to speak”, he laughs. All in all, Douwe learned a lot from it. “And the team really became closer in that week.”
Douwe describes himself as eager to learn, a little introverted and someone who handles stress well. “My calm demeanor was contagious for the rest of the group”, he noticed. He is a team player who enjoys working with others. “The best thing about HRIT is that it’s so often just like solving a puzzle. Not only do I enjoy that, but I’m also good at it. Thinking about a solution that meets the client’s wishes, and even delivers more than they asked for, is the best thing about my job.”
There’s always more to learn
Douwe will soon begin data support at Enza during phase two of the implementation process. “I’d like to be more involved in the analytical side of things. When I told the people at SuccessDay that I’d already done parts of the data support, they said: ‘Well, then show us that you can do it. So I accepted the challenge, ha ha.” He loves the fact that SuccessDay often challenges him and sometimes also throws him in the deep end.
The best thing about his employer is how approachable his colleagues are. “Luckily, everyone here is always willing to help. And it’s OK to make mistakes, but then they say ‘own it and fix it’. It’s also great that you can try things out in your own test environment. So it’s not the end of the world if it doesn’t work out.” Douwe also has managerial aspirations and expects to be able to develop further within SuccessDay. “One thing is sure: there are so many opportunities here. I always look further ahead and there’s a whole lot more to learn here.”
Douwe Clarijs
Junior Business Consultant
