Copies, Coffee, and a Career: What’s In An Internship?

Ah, the humble, unpaid internship: a well-thought-of way to “get your foot in the door” at the start of one’s professional career. For those at the helm of an SME, the term might bring to mind memories of a summer spent filing papers, or the promise of free labour at your own business, aka offloading admin work on a starry-eyed uni student.

But is offering an internship at your business more than just an opportunity to sort menial tasks for zero cost? On the Employment New Zealand website (employment.govt.nz), there are a number of basic rules to adhere to for unpaid internships; among these are the stipulation that unpaid interns do not “do work that is integral to the business, such as work that an employee would ordinarily do.” With that in mind, what deeper value can interns provide?

The answer depends on your approach, says culture and capability specialist Leslie Taylor. Leslie is a seasoned intern mentor, having directly managed around 70 paid and unpaid & paid interns throughout her career. (“Intern manager” has never been part of her role description, mind you; rather, Leslie believes so strongly in the value of internships that she has made the case to introduce them at nearly every company she has worked for.)

“This is a real opportunity to bring in a new generation to your workplace with diversity of thinking, fresh perspectives, and of course, the latest technology knowledge. Then, in turn, you’re giving them an opportunity to gain the practical experience they need to start their careers. ”

Leslie sources her interns through two university programmes: one at AUT and one at Massey, although she more commonly uses AUT for its consecutive nine-week structure. She says she understands why businesses think “admin” when they take on an intern – but she encourages business leaders to think beyond that to their role in an intern’s professional development.

“I see being an internship mentor, which I would say more than ‘manager,’ is supporting someone and help them to enable them to get a job within their chosen field,” she says. “Therefore, your responsibility is to give them that experience so when they go to an interview, they can cite that and demonstrate how they’ve put theory into practice.”

The benefits for the business, she says, are well worth the effort.

“In the long run, these people are going to leave your business with a positive experience about  interning at your company, and hopefully be a representative for your services and products you sell. And although the intern needs an experienced manager to support them on this journey, it can also be a great opportunity for someone in your business who has expressed interest in growing into a leadership role for them to coach and mentor or buddy up with this person to test out those leadership skills.”

The key to ensuring both your business and your intern get the most out of the experience, she says, is changing your perspective on the relationship.

“It’s not an employee-employer relationship and you mustn’t look at it like that — I think that’s the biggest hurdle to overcome in a leader or manager’s mindset. I see it more as a community service.” 

Why so? In Leslie’s experience, the reality of working with interns is that the first few weeks of their placement will involve significant guidance as they settle into workplace life, including overt and specific direction on dress code, mobile phone/Internet use, email etiquette, and tone or how to speak to people formally versus informally.

“A large portion of these students have never worked in a business before, aside from maybe hospo or retail,” she notes. “There is responsibility at a very basic level to make sure you go over your employee handbook in a bit more detail, because it would be the first time they have ever had to conform to those sorts of rules within a job.

“Weekly one-on-ones are a must,” she adds, “and a one-on-one should be different to what you have with your normal employees. You’re mentoring, guiding, and coaching these interns, and you’re giving more direction than you would have to give a senior member of your team. The more feedback you give them each week, then support them in making those changes during the week and circle back the next week, the further they’ll come.”

It’s once you’ve laid a solid foundation in the first few weeks of an intern placement, says Leslie, that the benefits to your business begin to show through. Having guided so many interns on their journeys, some in cohorts of four or five, Leslie has developed a roadmap for leading interns from listening and learning to providing real value to their host business.

“The first thing for me is getting to know them as a person: their values, their interests, and what they were thinking when they chose this career. By getting to know them as a person, you can adapt the experience, their interactions, the role, and their responsibility.”

With that tailored experience in mind, Leslie then sends the intern off on an “assessment of current state.” This introductory project sees them immerse themselves in one area of the business to learn, explore, and listen, with the ultimate goal of putting together a review, making recommendations, and presenting those recommendations to the business (for example, the intern might do a review of social media channels or a deep dive into your business’s inventory or purchasing systems). From there, whatever recommendations are prioritised and backed by the business become the intern’s personal project to complete by the end of their placement.

Not only does this type of project often yield valuable insights and potentially offer solutions for issues in your business, Leslie says, but it builds the intern’s confidence and real-world experience. “That is really empowering for an intern to do within their first couple of weeks. They learn to learn for themselves, to seek out and be curious and find information.

“And of course that is done amongst the boring analytics work or doing administrative work. But what you’ve taught these people is to go into a business, find a problem that needs to be solved, and solve it. That’s what every organisation wants.”

For more details about the requirements for internships and your basic obligations as a host business, visit the Employment New Zealand website (employment.govt.nz ), or consult with an employment lawyer to be sure of your obligations and how to properly set up the internship. Leslie encourages businesses of all sizes to think about how introducing an internship could help both their business and the community around them.

“I would encourage people to be part of supporting the next generation to step into their careers by giving them a great first experience. You can leave such a positive legacy in New Zealand by helping the next generation — they’ll remember this first opportunity, and their first leader, for the rest of their lives.”

Thank you to Leslie Taylor for her contribution to this article. By Beth Caunter

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