Onboarding your new intern

Handle paperwork during pre-boarding

The value of completing the pre-onboarding process for interns is immeasurable. To get them settled in as quickly as possible, do the following before their first day:

• Confirm their first day and standard hours of work, ideally in a face-to-face call, which can help them feel confident and give them the chance to ask you any questions
• Complete paperwork, including for banking forms and other requirements, such as an contracts if applicable.
• If they’re working in an office, have their desk space and computer set-up, ready, and waiting, along with any other equipment needs
• Provide access and permissions for all the digital tools and services they’ll be using, for example, Zoom, Teams, Google Drive, or Microsoft accounts
• Introduce starting interns to one or two colleagues during pre-onboarding. By setting up a face-to-face video call, you can further help negate any first-day nerves.

Communicate with the University

Interns can sometimes become overwhelmed when trying to balance their internship with their university life and whatever other responsibilities they may have outside of those. So, transparently, maintain open communication with the university.

In doing so, you’ll demonstrate a commitment to their wellbeing, and will be taking proactive steps to provide the additional support that all workers can benefit from, including interns.

Listen to what their academics have to say, adjust their schedule where necessary, and ensure you always have oversight of their workload and that it’s never unmanageable.

Share goals and expectations

Providing clear examples of what’s expected from new employees is particularly valuable to interns who may not have any experience of a typical working environment. One effective way to do this is by sharing key team meetings from the past year, quarter, or month. Not only will they have the chance to pick up on company goals, principles, and processes, but they’ll also be able to see how team members behave, communicate, and listen.

Occupational Health and Safety

Ensure your intern has completed your organisation's OH&S induction and training. Host organisations must have a commitment to safe work practices, such as a formal Occupational Health and Safety Plan, and must comply with the Occupational Health and Safety Act (Vic) 2004. Any disagreements, incidents or near accidents must be reported promptly to the Industry Placement Coordinators: engit-placements@unimelb.edu.au.

Map their journey

Share with your intern what they’ll get out of their time with you. Seeing the kinds of projects they’ll be working on and what skills they’ll learn will both reassure and motivate them.

By mapping their internship with a timeline showing the tools they’ll use, the special tasks they’ll complete, and the technical skills they’ll develop, you can also more easily track their training and progress.

Then the organisation can recognise each new achievement in one-to-one appraisals with their manager, or by sharing how they’ve helped the team in group communications.

Tell the team who’s starting and when

Be sure to let your team know there’ll be a new intern starting before their first day. This will give them the chance to prepare a welcome (even if it’s just a friendly email/teams message), set aside time for a meeting where applicable, and ensure your intern isn’t met with a succession of blank faces because everyone’s too busy to notice a new starter.

Meanwhile, the intern’s manager or team leader will have time to fully prepare the intern’s introduction to their role and initial tasks (which hopefully aren’t too demanding).

Give interns a fantastic introduction to the company culture

Everyone remembers their first day on the job and interns are no different – and how people start their new role can set the tone for the rest of their time with an organisation or team. Here are some of the live touchpoints you can plan for new interns so they understand the value of a strong team ethic and begin as you wish them to continue:

• A breakfast the morning they arrive with other interns. This is important as it will set new interns up with peers they can always turn to.
• A live meeting with the team and manager they’re joining. Make sure interns meet as early as possible with their teams. This will help alleviate much of their anxiety and give them the chance to start developing a rapport with their new colleagues.
• A brief daily one-to-one with the manager for the first week. This will give the manager the opportunity to provide extra support, answer questions, and track progress.
• A daily lunch with another team member or intern for the first week. Social lunches aren’t for everyone, but in the first week of the job this will help avoid any intern feeling alienated or unsupported.
• A brief weekly one-to-one with you for the whole duration of the internship. Interns will have the opportunity to ask you for any additional help, while also giving you feedback on their tasks and projects. Meanwhile, you can gauge their sense of comfort and where you may need to make improvements to the on-boarding process.

Engage, engage, engage

People perform best when they're engaged; engaged with their team, their objectives and their tasks. This is especially crucial for interns as they're probably only with you for a short time. So you need their buy-in from the start.

For interns working remotely, creating a highly structured, engaging on-boarding process is important. Since everyone's interactions take place via and app or platform, it means you can use automations to have more control over how to guide, time and shape those interactions.  For example, you can auto-generate tasks, automate emails to be sent out to interns, trigger team announcements and auto-schedule special meetings and reminders.

Use video platforms like Zoom, to easily organise group calls and encourage team members to use engagement features like emoji reactions, polls and breakout rooms. This way, team members can really express themselves and enjoy each other's company during meetings.

Let interns make the most of their internship

By taking care to provide interns with an engaging on-boarding experience that connects them with peers, team mates and managers, you can pre-empt many of the challenges they often face, such as lack of experience in the workplace.

Using digital tools to engage with interns in remote groups, one-to-one meetigs and event replays, you help them understand the underlying culture of the company, which does so much to bond workers and focus them on shared goals.