ITE as a Procedural Activity

Discuss your industrial training placement as a procedural activity, i.e., the importance of policies, processes, procedures and checklists in your workplace.

Policies are extremely important at Janssen; they set out guidelines, which need to be followed by every employee. These policies make sure that all employees’ functions do not cause compliance problems, such as having access to too many accounts on our system. At Janssen you are not able to post journals, if you have access to taxation, release sales and to transfer money from accounts. If these policies are followed without any compliance issues it means that the company successfully pass both its internal and external audits. Which are extremely important in Janssen.

At Janssen, with every task that was completed by an intern before I started my internship there is a set procedure written out on how to accomplish the task. I have referred to these procedures a numerous of times to ensure that I am completing my tasks correctly. However, not all my tasks have been done before such as the Claim Visibility Project. Thus when I was working out how to go about completing this and compiling all the necessary information into various spreadsheets, I had to write out the steps I was taking to find the information. I had to do this, as when I leave someone else either another intern or the accounts receivable lady will have to take over the responsibility of the Claims and need to know what information I have used and how I have complied it all to get the correct results. I have also written a checklist to make sure that they and I cover all basis when monthly updating all the spreadsheet making visible all the outstanding claims. At Janssen for every task there is a set of Standard Operating Procedures (SOP's) which need to be followed to ensure that tasks are completed correctly and by the right time. For example with Bank Clearing, if the procedures are not followed and the money is transferred into the incorrect or if the incorrect dates are imputed it causes many problems. These procedures are set out to ensure that these problems/incidents do not occur.

Every task I complete is a process, whether a small or larger process, there are always set steps that have to be followed. Everyday when I release the sales, you have to print out the sales that need to be release, however, as there are often problems with printing from SAP (the software where the sales are released from) and the printers the sheet has to be picked up before you release the sales. This is because you need a hard copy of all the released sales and if it does not print and you have already released the sales, it causes many complications (or so I have heard). Thus it is these small steps which make up the process in which the sales are released – however no matter how small the steps are they are all important to ensure it is done correctly.

Checklists are used extremely often. On my computer I have a checklist of all my day to day tasks, weekly and monthly tasks which I often check to make sure that I complete everything by their due dates. I also add projects any other tasks/projects to the checklist with their due date to ensure that I always stay on top of my work. The other intern and I also have a checklist with every reconciliation that is to be completed depending on whether its a month, quarter or year end. On this checklist it also has the person who is suppose to complete it and the manager/controller/director who is suppose to approve it. This allows us to make sure that the rec has been appropriately approved, because if a lower-level manager who does not have the authority approves it, the mistake will get found my the internal auditor when she does her audit of the Finance Team.