How Can We Work on Making Internship Scheme Successful?

The government of India introduced an internship scheme in the 2024 Union Budget to provide fresh graduates with practical work experience across various industries. This initiative targets one crore youth over five years, offering internships in the top 500 companies. Interns are to receive a stipend of ₹5,000 per month and one-time assistance of ₹6,000. The program is part of a broader effort to improve employability and enhance India’s workforce, particularly in sectors like energy, hospitality, banking, and manufacturing. Here’s a breakdown of the advantages and disadvantages of this scheme:

What the advantages of this scheme:

Financial Support: Interns receive a monthly stipend of ₹5,000 and a one-time assistance of ₹6,000, providing them with financial support during their internship period.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR): Companies participating in the program are required to fund 10% of the internship cost and bear the training expenses through their CSR funds, encouraging corporate involvement in youth development.

Insurance Coverage: Interns are covered under the Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana and Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana, offering additional safety nets.

Diverse Sectors: The internships cover 24 key sectors, including banking, automotive, energy, and hospitality, giving participants exposure to a wide range of industries.

Targeting Underrepresented Groups: The scheme prioritizes social inclusivity by promoting internships for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Other Backward Classes, and Persons with Disabilities.

Enhanced Employability: The scheme offers practical exposure in real-world business environments for freshers, allowing them to apply academic knowledge to hands-on tasks. This can help bridge the gap between theoretical learning and workplace skills, improving employability.

While customized internship opportunities provide tailored experiences that align with an intern’s skills and interests, they also come with some disadvantages in real-world applications. What are these disadvantages and how do we overcome them?

We will discuss that in this article.

1. Limited Scope for Learning

Narrow Focus: Customized internships often concentrate heavily on specific tasks or areas that a company is already focused on training for, which can limit an intern’s exposure to diverse functions or roles. This can result in a narrow skill set, particularly in specialized industries like manufacturing, automotive, and related fields, where tasks may become repetitive.

Lack of Comprehensive Skill Development: Unlike standardized internship programs that offer a holistic view of an organization, customized roles might prevent interns from developing a balanced set of both soft skills (communication, teamwork) and hard skills (technical knowledge). This lack of variety can stifle broader career growth.

Over-specialization: Interns may become too focused on niche areas that are not easily transferable to other industries or roles, making it challenging to switch jobs or industries in the future.

Solutions to Address the Problem:

• Rotation Between Job Roles: Introducing a job rotation system, where interns experience at least two different roles within the company, can help them gain a wider understanding of various functions and industries.
• Cross-Organizational Partnerships: Collaborating with similar companies allows interns to work in different environments, offering them a broader skill set and better employment prospects after the internship.
• Dedicated Soft and Hard Skill Training: Specialized training by expert trainers focusing on both technical skills and interpersonal skills can ensure that interns make the most of their time, developing into well-rounded candidates who are more likely to be retained by the company.

2. Resource Intensity

Resource Intensive: Developing personalized internship programs requires considerable investments from companies in terms of time, manpower, and resources. Organizations may need to allocate staff members to mentor interns, which can strain resources and potentially affect other operations.

Unclear Return on Investment (ROI): Customized internships might not always result in tangible or immediate benefits, especially if the intern’s role does not align directly with the company’s critical business needs, making it harder to justify the investment.

Solutions to Address the Problem:

• Utilize CSR Funds for Customization: Leveraging Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) funds for designing internships ensures that companies can manage the costs of personalized programs without straining operational budgets.
• Training Expenses Covered Under CSR: The scheme already provides an avenue for training expenses to be covered under CSR funds, which is a major advantage in reducing the financial burden on companies.
• Dynamic Role Rotation: Rotating interns between departments based on current job vacancies ensures that they are trained for roles that are in demand, making it easier to quantify the impact of the internship and align with the company’s needs.
• Dedicated Internship Management Department: Establishing a specialized department to oversee internship programs—handling tasks like role availability, curriculum design, and training—ensures smoother management and allows companies to optimize resources effectively.
• Clear ROI through Internal Hiring: Defining clear ROI becomes easier when companies absorb well-trained interns into full-time roles, ensuring that the time and resources invested in the internship translate into long-term benefits for the organization.

3. Inconsistent Standardization

Lack of Consistent Intake: Randomly selecting interns without clear assessment criteria can lead to inconsistency in the quality of interns, which directly affects the success of the internship program. Without standardized recruitment processes, both the interns and companies may experience uneven learning outcomes, impacting the program’s long-term effectiveness and employment opportunities.

Lack of Standardization, Accreditation, or Recognition: Customized internships that focus on specific roles might result in interns lacking broader knowledge and skills. This can limit their ability to demonstrate the value of their experience to future employers, affecting their career prospects.

Solutions to Address the Problem:

• Sector Skill Councils’ Active Involvement: By involving sector skill councils (SSCs), industries can collaborate and establish standardized recruitment and training practices. They can also implement exchange programs across similar industries to ensure a consistent and enriched learning experience for interns.
• Smaller Units Partnering with Larger Firms: Smaller organizations, which may not qualify for internship schemes, can collaborate with larger firms to take on interns at the end of their internship period. This would provide additional opportunities for interns and diversify their experiences.
• Collaborative Efforts from Industry Bodies: Industrial bodies like the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI) and SSCs can drive collaboration across industries, helping to create standardized training programs and ensuring that internships are recognized and valued by employers across sectors.

4. Dependency on Supervisor Engagement

Requires Strong Mentorship: The success of customized internships relies heavily on the quality and commitment of the mentor or supervisor. If the mentor is either disengaged or too occupied, the intern might not receive the necessary guidance and feedback, which can severely limit their learning and growth during the program.

Mentorship Gaps: In some cases, supervisors may not have the required training to provide personalized mentorship, leading to an inconsistent experience for the intern, which can hinder their development.

Solutions to Address the Problem:

• Engagement of Skilling Partners: Partnering with skilling agencies can help address this issue. Skilling partners, especially those recognized by the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC), can bring in expertise to design relevant content, develop a robust curriculum, and deploy trainers. This ensures a structured mentorship and learning process.
• Customized Assessments and Absorption: These partners can also conduct customized assessments at the end of the internship program, ensuring that interns are equipped with the right skills. This makes it easier for them to be absorbed by the company or find roles in similar industries, ensuring the internship experience has tangible outcomes.

5. Challenges in Measuring Performance

Subjective Evaluation: Evaluating intern performance using generalized benchmarks can be difficult, leading to vague or inconsistent feedback. This lack of clear assessment criteria can hinder both interns and companies from effectively measuring the success and impact of the internship.

Solutions to Address the Problem:

• Incorporate Qualification Packs: Including a structured qualification pack in the internship program would benefit both training and assessment. It ensures that interns meet specific standards related to their roles, making performance evaluation more objective and consistent.
• Standardized Assessment Framework: Given the government’s significant investment in providing stipends, implementing a standardized assessment system tailored to each role will enhance the program’s credibility. This approach would allow for more reliable measurement of an intern’s performance, ensuring alignment with industry needs and promoting accountability.

6. Mismatch in Expectations

Potential Misalignment: There is a risk that the expectations of the intern and the employer may not align, leading to confusion or dissatisfaction on both sides.

Solutions to Address the Problem:

• Comprehensive Orientation: Providing a detailed orientation at the start of the internship is essential to clarify expectations both during and after the internship. This helps avoid misunderstandings and potential dropouts.
• Pre-Internship Counselling: Interns should be briefed in advance on critical aspects such as working hours, salary expectations, cultural fit, accommodation, and other logistics. This upfront communication can prevent issues that may arise later, reducing unnecessary effort that would otherwise go into training an intern who may not stay in the program.

In conclusion, while customized internships offer personalized learning experiences, they come with risks such as narrow focus, higher costs, inconsistency in quality, and potential for unmet expectations. For both employers and interns, it is essential to balance customization with clear goals and structure to ensure a mutually beneficial experience.