As your office is slowly getting back to capacity with employees trickling in after their respective holiday vacations, local universities are also gearing up to start classes again for the spring semester. As the students head back to school, make their textbook purchases, and start tapping on their new laptops to complete the first wave of homework assignments, your business may want to think about incorporating a few of those faces into the workplace by hiring some interns for the semester.
Interns are a great way to potentially find loyal future employees from the ground up. Not only are they learning important skills that will help them to be better employees in the future, but your company gets the opportunity to diversify for a couple months with a fresh new face and an eagerness to learn about and help your company.
Is your business prepared to welcome new interns on board? Here are three things you need to do before your company starts sending out internship job postings.
Make sure you have the budget.
There are a lot of businesses out there that still hire interns without any intention of ever paying or hiring them. I cannot stress enough that an intern does not equate free, meaningless labor. Just as your company will benefit from having a new perspective and excited new worker added to your team, your intern should benefit from an hourly rate and the ability to walk away from the experience having learned more than what they came in with. Do not hire interns if you don’t have it in the budget to pay them either an hourly wage or a stipend at the time of the internship’s completion.
Prep your managers to avoiding any micromanaging.
Gen Y-ers are independent folk. They like a strong sense of direction accompanied with good instructions, but once an assignment has been given, they needn’t be checked in on every hour or so until it’s done. Give your interns the opportunity to prove themselves responsible by giving them responsibilities and allowing them to take initiative on their own. When a person feels needed, he will perform better.
Apply the warm welcome approach rather than intimidating.
Hopefully, we’ve all moved passed the days of scaring new interns or tasking them with menial assignments like getting coffee for the office. Especially if your business is on the smaller side, the best approach you can have when hiring a new intern team member is to welcome them to the family. Typically, people perform better in an agreeable, kind work environment. Aim to make their workspace (this goes for all of your employees, too!) as positive as possible.