From Being an Intern to Managing an Intern: Important Professional Lessons

The week before the intern I was supposed to manage arrived, I found myself doing a lot of introspection and planning. I charted out a list of goals and objectives to target for his brief duration with our team, I planned a one-on-one lunch to learn more about his personal and professional goals, and I prepared a document ahead of time that would contain resources that would help him navigate the team and organizational culture for his smooth transition.

I remember it being a busy week since I was straddling two roles in the team, and I found my calendar full to the brim. Still, reflecting on my own experiences of being an intern from not too long ago, I wanted to really collaborate with the intern to leverage our core strengths, and still make this an experience he could find himself really benefiting from. I wanted him to know that although he would be with us only for a month, that we would invest in him and ensure he walked away feeling a lot more confident about the professional world ahead of him.

I've been an intern not once or twice, but seven times. A lot of people I encountered asked me why I did this, seeing how I had already gained core competencies in each internship, and had walked away from them with glowing recommendations from my managers. The key here is to understand you don't seek out internships out of helplessness, but out of a need to experiment, branch out and diversify with the different environments you're placed in.

I've also observed how the presumption of being desperate to land a job or seeking validation are attached to interns. I've seen interns being neglected, under-utilized, excluded from key team events and projects, and even being downright disrespected in work environments that are more hierarchical.

Across my seven internships too, I've experienced a spectrum of learnings, mostly positive in nature. I've had managers and teams trust my rookie instincts with big projects, and invite me to team after-hour hangouts. I've had colleagues talk to me a little condescendingly, just because they could since I was an intern and had to make sure I was putting my best foot forward if I wanted that recommendation. I've burned the midnight oil, well past regular working hours to support my team. I've felt intimidated by senior management, a little uncertain of my own abilities and sometimes, the apprehension if I was doing enough.

Still, I found a strong network, wonderful friends, a few reliable mentors but most importantly- a sense of how professional experiences could be molded for the benefit of lower-level employees just starting out their careers who were just experimenting with the unknown. Even when I was hired full-time, I felt a sense of camaraderie with new hires and interns whose teams might overlook their well-being to just utilize their time for tasks that were administrative in nature and sometimes, consisted even of coffee runs.

I was like a fly in the wall as an intern, taking in everything from how consciously I saw body language shifts in how some employees would talk to senior management, and how I would suddenly see their tones change to being more abrasive while interacting with interns and executives. I found that work cultures were plagued with a vicious cycle of extrinsic motivation through promotions and raises, and saw how mutual respect and integrity were compromised along the way.

I realized in order to break this vicious cycle of condescension and disrespect towards lower level employees, all it took was one mentor, one senior executive who saw potential in me, collaborated with me instead of passing on his share of work, and somebody who respected me enough to treat me as an equal member in the workplace instead of take advantage of my lack of knowledge and awareness as the youngest member of the team. I was fortunate to have at least two strong mentor figures in my journey as an intern, who I can still text and call for guidance when I'm feeling a little lost. Those positive experiences made me want to pay it forward.

That's why when my intern Esmail finally started his stint, I made weekly check-ins routine to listen to his feedback of his week and learnings, to gauge his areas of improvement and to fine tune my own management skills. The responsibility of a manager goes well beyond just executing work thoroughly; it encompasses managing people's time, energies and emotions. I wasn't only responsible for my deliverables anymore, I was enthusiastic to pass on my knowledge of the communications industry to Esmail, give him autonomy for his projects, and provide him open and comfortable spaces to discuss feedback from time to time.

If organizations and teams don't continue to invest in their interns and consider the relationship transactional, they could lose out on building an immense talent pipeline. By introducing interns and other employees starting their careers to the organization's fabric early on, it could mean building loyalty in long-standing employees in the future, who contribute, grow and work to improve organizational processes with their actions.

Having an intern has taught me a lot about the ethics I operate with, and has been allowed for me to make improvements to my own style of working. He was able to contribute immensely to the team, and made functioning overall a lot smoother.

On a quick final note, here are a few points I kept in mind to ensure this was a collaborative, not a transactional relationship:

1.Making work an open, comfortable and problem-free space: This was priority for me in working alongside the intern. By making him feel welcome and safe at work, I made sure any problems or challenges he faced were addressed.

2. Making work enjoyable: The only conversations on the table weren't work, deliverables and timelines. I wanted to keep micromanagement off the table strictly and make work exciting, not a task. As a manager, I realized this onus was on me since I would be most frequently interacting with him.

3. Involvement in projects: Whether or not the intern would be involved on a given project, I recommended that he shadow any meetings and calls he was able to- to get a better understanding of how different puzzle pieces in the organization work together, and expand the scope of his thinking beyond public relations and social media.

4. Sharing networks and resources: From personal observation, employees can often be secretive about their contacts and feel apprehensive to share their network with anybody else. I found that introducing the intern to more teams not only increased his comfort in approaching them for any work, but also improved the quality of work for projects.

5. Respect and trust: I keep these two values at my cornerstone for anybody I manage, and will manage in the future. I really wanted to strike a balance here between friend and enabler at work, so I kept our relationship professional, yet light. Scare tactics, intimidation, aggression or hostility were just never going to be factors that dictated my work relationships. I want to keep empathy and compassion at the centre of everything.