Having given you my views last week on the American Tipping scene I thought this week we might have a quick look at another American phenomenon - internships.
Daughter number two works for an upmarket restaurant group in New York that operate about 12 different themed restaurants in the city.
She has a paid internship which involves a structured training plan designed to give her a wide range of both front and back of house experience. She will be entering fourth year in Culinary Entrepreneurship in DIT Cathal Brugha Street in September.
There are regular reviews with management about how she is doing according to the agreed plan. She also has to submit a full report of her work experience to the college which is marked as part of third year exams.
She absolutely loves the job and is paid $12 (€11.02) an hour but is not allowed to earn tips. I wondered about this because tips are such an important component of any front of house restaurant.
Having reflected on it from the business owners point of view, I can see that because tips are such an important component of take home pay, permanent professional staff would have a justifiable gripe if their earnings were negatively affected if the company used interns in a way that was cheaper for the company but diminished the earnings of full time staff.
Interns at the same company are only allowed work a maximum of 40 hours a week which again showed me that if an intern programme is properly structured and remunerated it can be a really good initiative for both the employer and employee.
Shame about the tips though - because it’s hard to live in NYC on $480 a week!
The Irish way
This brings me on to my second subject - JobBridge the government's initiative based on internships which has had its fair share of critics.
Essentially a candidate presents his or herself for work, and is allowed to maintain social welfare income along with a €50 weekly top-up payment. This allows someone build up the skill set needed to gain experience which will hopefully lead to employment.
It is open to abuse and has been abused - but let me give you my direct experience of Jobridge. In my company, Insomnia we have used the scheme on 3 occasions.
Peter was taken on as an intern in our marketing department when the scheme started. He's a lovely lad who made a great contribution to the company and he is now a full time employee in the marketing department of Insomnia.
Byron, who I met with just yesterday, is someone who worked in our HR department as a Jobridge intern. He too now works with us on a full time basis and will be heading to Limerick next week to line up potential staff for a new opening we have planned there soon.
We have a third candidate working in our accounts department at the moment and if he shows commitment and potential - I have no reason to see why he will not be kept on after he finishes the program.
"Those who abuse JobBridge should be named and shamed and it would put an immediate stop to most of the alleged abuse that is happening out there."
My own view is that employers should only be allowed use the scheme if there is a real job at the end of the program.
Those who abuse it should be named and shamed and it would put an immediate stop to most of the alleged abuse that is happening out there.
I also believe that if possible employers should help the employee with the cost of getting to work, and in our case we are able to provide free meals to employees which is a benefit to anyone trying to get by on social welfare +€50.
In summary, I am a believer in internships - they can work for employer and employee provided that there's structure - and that everyone plays by the rules.
