Interns and Value ~ Expectations, aspirations, realities in the non-Professional world

 

CONTENTS

  1 Introduction
  2 Interns vs Staff
  3    Where to go?
  4 A Program
  5    About their Aspirations
  6    Aspirational needs
  7    Aspirational values
  8    Program Framework
  9    Feedback
10 Points to Ponder
11 In conclusion

from "A medieval baker with his apprentice". The Bodleian Library, Oxford.*1

Introduction

Interns.
Internships.

Two honorable words sourced from the medical profession.
It's an upgrade on the apprenticeship model ~ “you’ve done your training, got your learner’s license, and in a year’s time you get your full drivers and then you can start practising.”

The dictionary definitions mirror this,

OED	Webster
The position of a student or trainee who works in an organization, sometimes without pay, in order to gain work experience or satisfy requirements for a qualification	An advanced student or graduate usually in a professional field (such as medicine or teaching) gaining supervised practical experience (as in a hospital or classroom)

but not so reflective of interns coming into non-professional positions in our economy today.

Sidebar! If your company is in the lowest common denominator, we can shrink OED to “The position of a student or trainee who works in an organization without pay to kick-start their cv’s” Then this post is not for you! Nothing to see here, moving on, moving on.

With that little bit of background. let’s talk interns and how to get the best out of them.

Interns vs Staff

When we look for staff, and/or look to be employed, our aspirations (and theirs) are a big part of the decision making process – obviously.

It’s a somewhat different look and feel when we talk interns, though.
Interns are on the threshold of their careers. This creates a very different dynamic.

Many companies have a clearly defined path for their interns, veering between cheap labour and talent spotting.

• In the former the role of oversight is dropped to the lowest common denominator in the existing work force. 
• The latter have an internship program which is designed to identify talent early, and then lock this into the organisation.

Neither are particularly interested in the aspirations of their interns, though. Both ends of this spectrum become to a greater or lesser degree exploitative. Of course, there are many well-thought out Internship programs in both the Public and private sectors, but they are no the focus of this post.

Because it’s unusual to ask the interns what their aspirations are, and hence to deduce their aspirational needs. I suggest you will limit the value derived from the interns, and so by the organizational and the team or area they are placed in.

Where does that put us

Now, If your company isn’t on the prowl for cheap labour or cornering the market for raw talent, what then?

•  Maybe you’re not big enough for a formal internship program.
•  You might also be thinking “we have all this additional work to do, we can’t afford a junior, but we can pull on board an intern and get the work done on the QT”.

The problem with these (and most other) approaches is easily highlighted: for work to be effective and valuable requires oversight. And having a warm body sit on a chair waiting for “the what to do” is boring and depressing for the intern, and irksome and time wasting for the manager.

Here is a program which might help you

(it always has for me)
Let’s start with putting ourselves in the intern’s shoes. Some really basic questions to kick off with, followed by a discussion on value, and finally some process. Addressing the intern(s):

 About their Aspirations

•  What do you aspire to be one day?
•  Do you have any thoughts on how you will become that?
•  What can you learn here which will be part of the foundation of that becoming?

Which leads to Aspirational needs

•  What skills do you (believe you) need to pick up in order to meet those aspirations?
•  What tools do you (believe you) need to learn to work with / about?
•  What things do you (believe you) need to know about in the industry (in general) and our company’s positioning (in particular)

Aspirational values: Tell them the following

The year that you will spend here will bring about a change in your life. We hope that this will bring you closer to your aspirations, maybe lay the groundwork for a career. While you are here, the level and quality of your work will contribute to our success. In doing your work, you will observe something of the effort, commitment, and time required to become a Professional in this industry; of our role in this community; the value it contributes; the quality expected; and the difficulties and issues it faces in remaining relevant. In other words, you will acquire something of our values, what we aspire to be, and this will help you to mould your own values in your chosen career.

Program a framework as part of their induction

1) Start by writing a short paragraph on your aspirations as above.
2) Think about, list and discuss the needs above. If you have additional bullet points to add, go ahead and do so.
3) What made you come to us?
4) What did you think the role of an intern is?
5) Discuss what you expect to do as an intern

•  Induction
•  Tasks
•  Oversight and feedback
•  Usefulness of the work

6) Which parts of the business do you expect to be exposed to? It’s also OK to say “I am happy to be guided by you” or “I'm not sure what to expect” if that’s the case
7) What kind of work did you expect to do? Again, if you aren't sure that’s also ok to say
8)  How do you expect your work to be measured?
9) What are the things that you have seen which makes you think that a career in this field is exciting and attainable for you?
10) How do you think your work will be valuable to the company? And to yourself?
11) Does your work might detract from the Value that the company tries to deliver?

12) As you continue with the internship, keep a journal of your experiences and motivate how best to make use of your role within the framework of the workload of the Senior people. In particular, journalise regularly on  9-11.

Use these Questions and their responses to

• Set expectations (up or down!)
• Determine a "fit"
• Decide on level of oversight, placement, position, work

Feedback

At regular intervals and at the end of the internship, measure how expectations are/were met by revisiting Questions 5 to 11. Add these:
13) What would you do differently if you were to run an internship program?
14) Think about your experiences to date, and suggest changes (where needed)

Points to Ponder

Young people go in one of two direction: self-indulgence or sleeves rolled up. The difference really comes down to motivation. Even innately lazy kids step up to the plate if they “get” your message.

Cautionary! It’s a mistake to make the internship “all about them”. They are with us first and foremost to work, and only through work, to learn. In many ways, an internship is partly an apprenticeship and partly a mentorship: they learn that their value comes from what they do, how well they do it, and by observing and listening, discover a model for their future careers.

With this in mind, I did these things especially with my interns:

•    I made real sure that they would understand how what they were doing was valuable, and how it released me to spend more time on the critical aspects of success. Without them, success was lower, with them, raised the bar. So work that might seem trivial is shown always to be, in its own way a critical part of overall success. But if done poorly, requiring re-work and too much oversight, pulled us back. To be in the team they had to work really hard, and with genuine enthusiasm.
•    At regular intervals we would do lessons learned. This was part of a promise to provide insight into the my job, and their contribution to my (hence the team’s) success. Regular isn’t a diary designated thing. It might be for instance, after an event over coffee discussing what worked and what didn’t, and how to improve. It might be a morning into a filing job, to see what was happening, what issues were coming up, and to give feedback on what is happening elsewhere. This is also a part of the promise to help them to learn and understand the industry.
•    Let them make mistakes and then work the mistakes out of them. High oversight to begin with, immediate (and sometimes quite abrupt) correction, but always with an eye to improving their performance and hence our output.
•    Provide positive feedback on the outcomes of their work e.g. “I would have battled to find that xxx if we hadn’t got it filed properly. Made a difference in getting yyy out on time”. That sort of thing.

In conclusion

When people feel valued, they perform miracles. Interns only feel valued if you make them work hard, value the results, and strictly build up their standards . . . They need to be turned into foot soldiers ready to go through fire and brimstone and rain, mud and slush for the cause, because they know that foot soldiers eventually climb up into the officer ranks.


*1: Public domain image sourced from Wikimedia Commons

It's a new Spring for me, Same old winter for them

If you don't know what you don't know ~ Honour those who do: 

A Season's lesson in looking after core values,
honouring and respectng knowledge, 
and rewarding the people who work in the Engine Room

A little over a year ago I had breakfast with a stranger in a coffee shop not too far from where I am typing this. Chance had brought us together: I had resigned from my previous job because my daughter was coming back from far-away lands and I wanted to free myself up to be with her. The question of gainful employment was furthest from my mind. He was looking for someone to fill a hole, help to move his ship from its present rocky course back into navigable waters and safe passage.

..

It was a cold winter's morning in July, and we had been brought together by a mutual third party. As we sat and drank steaming hot coffee and spoke about the challenges he had, and his vision for the journey, we both felt a sense of a common destiny and purpose. He had a clear understanding of the issues, and I could see clearly where I could make a contribution. We shook hands on it, a mutual agreement that once the space opened I would Lead that part of his convoy. Today marks the end of that venture, and it ends, bittersweet, with both success and failure.

..

The ship has changed course, and sails on a safe passage. There lies the success.
But the crew is decimated, the best have left and callow youths stand in their stead.
The ship's owners, knowing little of the work at hand, what it takes to deliver, or the carrying capacity of their crews, have responded to the successes by raising unrealisable expectations and punishing the shortfalls.

..

This is an analogy of course: in reality we are talking about COTS Software and IT systems:
the "crew" delivered a 51% increase in turnover, 47% increase in profit, the clients were universally satisfied and new, more equitable and sustainable deals were on the table. The owners responded by cancelling all bonuses and cutting back increases: excellence is not sufficient when there are shareholder pockets to be lined.

..

The collapse has followed quickly. How do people respond when they find their rewards yanked, and their targets raised still higher? The best go immediately, the second tier follow in the months to come. Delivery is curtailed, Sales dwindle, existing work can no longer be resourced, and quality drains away as juniors replace seniors. Expectation from existing clients were raised: the new course is working, but alas! The crews do not have the know-how or experience anymore, and those few who remain are worked to the bone: one by one they slip away. Without the leadership and navigational skills, the ship strays once more towards the rocks and shallows.

..

Deming said that you need a deep appreciation of your systems in order to create sustainable processes. If you lack that appreciation, then employ people who do, or who can realise it if there's time. Our owners did the reverse: With the best gone already, and income shrinking, they took to the fire pumps: sideline Management and start a round of retrenchments.

..

Let us change analogies for a moment:
I am reminded of a passage in The Call of The Wild, Jack London's story about sled dog teams in the deep of Alaska ... we are at that point where the team, dogs, harnesses and sled have been sold to a family of Southerners, who know nothing of travelling (or indeed, life!) in the near-Arctic. They know only of the gold they are hoping to prospect, and the smell of it is in their nostrils. They make slow time, they overburden the team, they quarrel and bicker amongst themselves. Time passes and they reach a moment where the lead dog, knowing what is coming on the trail, exhausted (as is his team) by overloading, lack of sleep and poor food, refuses to go further. They beat it half to death, then are forced to cut it loose and leave it on the trail.

..

As they move off, the dog lifts its head and watches as his team staggers out onto the ice, watches as the ice cracks and gives way, watches as the whole lot of them, men, woman, dogs and sled slide to their doom.

..

To reality:
The Leader is gone.
The lead dogs cut loose, and
the best of the pack have long since fallen by the wayside.
Those who remain answer to a Management of lawyers, and chartered accountants, and a sprinkling of old timers who have doubled their salaries by returning as consultants.
But since that was never my way, I refused that offer and will watch them from afar.

..

As for the Stranger and me: we are strangers no more, and the long journey has moulded us both. Its a new Spring for me, and I expect the same for him: but its the same cold winter that waits on them.
__________________

Jack London's "Call of the Wild" is generally taken to be a rather dated childrens story.
That's a great pity.
It tells us a lot about life and what we do to cope and survive.
You can read it on-line here :)

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The images are from the original publication back in 1903, and can be found at the link above. To the best of my knowledge, they are in the public domain