Employee retention needs a boost? How about staff productivity? If your answer is yes, then maybe you should consider looking to your company’s interns, or at putting an internship program in place if your company does not already have one.
According to Paul Harrington, director of the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University, studies show that employees brought into companies first as interns consistently improve employee retention rates and workplace productivity.
Employees introduced to companies via an internship program also increase minority recruitment, he said, as well as help foster better connections with sources of labor supply such as colleges and universities.
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“(Internships are) a nice way to figure out if this is a person who needs to be in your organization. How you bring people into the firm matters a lot,” Harrington said at “Internships 101 for Business,” an event held Feb. 28 at the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce.
And according to participants in the event, co-hosted by the chamber’s technology committee and the Rhode Island Technology Council (RITEC), internship programs will play a crucial role in the development of a successful IT workforce for the state. Internships 101 brought together industry professionals and educators for a morning of discussion about the impact of internships on companies, students and the broader workforce.
Representatives from nearly every area university and college attended, hoping to forge new connections with the business community that could pay off in more internship opportunities for students.
Patricia Dion, a corporate relations consultant at Boston University (BU), was at the event to let companies know about BU’s new MS.MBA (Master of Science degree in information systems, with a masters in business administration) program – which combines technical and business management skills for a combined degree – at its School of Management.
Dion said that in a slow economy, which finds so many technology companies challenged, obtaining internships for students has been a little more difficult than it was a few years ago.
“I’m happy to see (this seminar) happen, because other companies can look at this and say ‘This isn’t hard,’” said Patricia Blakemore, a career services coordinator at the New England Institute of Technology (NEIT) in Warwick. “(Students) want to get involved.”
Nick LaManna, associate department chair of NEIT’s Information Technology Department, agreed.
“They want to be able to get into a real-life situation,” he said. “They want to learn things they can’t learn in a classroom.”
The event featured a panel presentation in which local IT leaders described internship opportunities at their companies and offered suggestions to attendees interested in implementing similar programs.
“We find it a great opportunity to really cherry pick emerging talent and use it for growth,” said Jackie Sotnik, manager of human resources for information services at CVS, who added that interns are not the only ones who stand to benefit from the internship experience.
Interns bring fresh ideas into the company, she said, and regular staff can learn by educating them and using the opportunity to refine their management skills.
Lexington, Mass.-based Raytheon hosted 38 interns last summer, according to company human resources manager Guy Harris. He too said that internships are beneficial to both student and company: “It’s a prolonged interview. We get to look at them, they get to look at us,” he said.
Himself a product of the co-op program (which places an emphasis on outside work experience as a key component to a student’s degree program) at Northeastern University, Blue Moon Industries’ President Gary Palardy advised potential internship companies to have – and adhere to – specific requirements for interns. It is crucial, he said, to match a company’s culture.
“We have to have students who are very comfortable and who can get along without a lot of guidance,” he said.
In addition to knowing what you need as a company, Palardy said that an internship program is most meaningful for students – and to the company they are working with – if interns are treated seriously as contributors to the workplace.
At Blue Moon, a Riverside-based systems integrator, for example, interns “get the same welcome kit as everybody else,” Palardy said. “They get button-down company shirts. They get business cards. There’s a sense of belonging that comes with that. (Interns) look at it like ‘Okay, this is for real now,’ and they need to think of it as ‘for real.’”
Mandie Sullivan, president and chief operations officer of SilverLight Productions in Newport, said that part of what attracted her company to the area is the academic depth of the area’s colleges and universities. She urged companies not to feel hemmed in by calendars or academic schedules – an internship can be whatever students and sponsoring companies decide it should be.
“Internships can be short, project-based, if necessary,” she said.
Many of the same panelists will regroup for another forum, to be held at the Providence chamber’s Business Expo on April 10.
