At GOJEK, Sky’s the Limit
Written by Jayin Lee
Jayin Lee is a student from Singapore Management University (SMU) who had a chance to intern at GOJEK for 5 days. It was a short time but for her, the impression lasts forever.
My short tenure in GOJEK has been nothing but eye-opening. From the very first day, Jess, Haikal, and Mikha showed what true hospitality is like. They were warm, friendly, constantly making sure we were comfortable and extremely helpful. Besides providing guidance for our 5-days employer branding project, they went all out, reaching out to people from different departments we were interested in, setting meetings with them for us to learn more. The amount of care they put in, the consideration they had for us — treating us not as “5-days-interns” but students who were curious to know more, and as friends, is extremely heartwarming. Friendships have definitely been forged.
Taking on this 5-day employer branding project was no small task. This was not a familiar area of expertise for the group and it was a really short time period. Also, did I mention how Ika, embodying the true GOJEK spirit, told us there were no parameters for this project, we get to set the scope and how not to even consider thinking outside the box — because well, there ain’t no box, to begin with. This fresh approach while adventurous, shock us quite a fair bit. The structure has always been our guide, and now we get to determine Our structure, from scratch.
Ika however, was a great mentor during our 5 days. Friendly, humorous with that contagious, hearty laugh, was also extremely detail-oriented, honest with her opinions and empathetic. She held space for us to make mistakes — as long as we didn’t repeat them and bounced back fast. When we wasted 1 whole day going in the wrong direction because we did not set out success metrics beforehand, she did not come down on us harshly. Instead, she was glad we went in the wrong direction because now we learn the importance of check-ins. Now we learn to set success metrics beforehand. Now we learn to think first, plan a bit longer instead of jumping right in blindly only to end up nowhere. Ika taught us plenty of things, and they are not all “soft skills”. She showed us how to be rigorous with our thinking, making sure we knew exactly our thought process behind every decision. Why do we choose this over that e.g why 30% and not 30000 downloads. How to not blindly follow structure/analysis without understanding how it came about or why it is useful.
I experienced, felt and learned a lot within GOJEK’s offices, but even outside could I feel the positive impact GOJEK was making among the Indonesian population. A few days back, I decided to try out GO-MASSAGE. Curious, I had a conversation with the masseur who told me her story. How she earned 15,000 rupiah in reflexology previously but GOJEK allowed her to keep 80% of every massage session right now which is around, at the very bare minimum, 4X more. This disparity in income earned shocked me. GOJEK also allows her to be flexible with her timing, allowing her to fetch her brother to and from school, while the extra money earned means she can afford to send her brother for English classes. I died a little inside when I heard her story. All the time I read about GOJEK statistics, how it increased employment, how it changed the life of the people in Indonesia, how it brought some form of order on the congested roads — I brushed them by as statistics, numbers. Yet then, right in front of me, was a lady whose life has turned 180 because of GOJEK. Right then, I understood and truly felt how technology when done right, could not only improve people and their families lives but radically change it for the better. GOJEK has proven it can achieve this kind of life-changing social impact at scale, and I can’t wait to see what’s more the GOJEK team has to show the world.
If GOJEK ever second thinks on its decision to hold these form of short-term immersion projects for future batches because of the resources required, I hope GO-JEK remembers that the pioneer batch remembers the lessons learnt, and that they have shown at least one member, how truly to never doubt what kind of social impact at scale one can achieve — when what GOJEK has achieved all started from a 20-man call centre. Sky’s the limit.
Warmly,
Jayin
Interested to have an incredible internship experience like Jayin? Let’s embark on an #adventure with us by visiting GOJEK’s Career Page!
