Hybrid internships

Interns undertake a huge amount informal learning from being in the office. They can learn more by

• attending meetings
• listening to the conversations that happen around the room
• having informal conversations with colleagues

These provide insight to a workplace, its culture and the wider arts sector.

Workplaces are important in developing an intern’s social network too.  This supports interns in both their personal and professional lives.  

Hybrid working can limit this informal learning and network-building when working from home. Host organisations and employers should make an effort to

• Schedule time in the office for where interns are in the office with the rest of the team
• Be more proactive about organising social events between workers
• Allow time in meetings for informal conversation 

Home working might seem an appealing prospect, but it doesn’t suit everyone’s circumstances.  

Some thrive on the flexibility that working away from the office provides. It can

• Save time and money commuting
• Make balancing work with other commitments easier  
• Lead to improved work/ life balance

Others miss the structure and support office-based working provides. Working from home more can present problems such as

• Less informal connection and socialising
• Isolation and challenges to wellbeing
• Less opportunity for learning through observation
• Lack of access to space for home working
• Lack of access to equipment and internet necessary for effective home working
• Difficulty separating work from the rest of life
• Interns or those new to a role might be particularly concerned about productivity

A key factor in running a quality hybrid internship is to be clear about how the role will work.

At the point of advertising any hybrid internship role it should be clear

• What specific role and work the intern will be doing with a clear job description
• What an intern needs to provide/have for home working
• What the host organisation will provide for home working
• What options there are for working in the office if this is a better option for the intern
• In what other ways the host organisation can be flexible if an applicant lacks the right equipment or circumstances

Host organisations should be as flexible as possible so they do not exclude applicants because of their circumstances.

Potential interns should understand that smaller organisations have limited resources.

Host organisations should

• Devise a role that balances writing, creative activity, and administration.
• Ensure the interns work includes tasks that can take place away from a screen or computer
• Make clear which what must happen at the office.
• List all equipment needed for the job and what the employer will provide. Include any web-conferencing or remote working software, including internet speed.
• Be clear about desk access on site. Remember that working from home can be difficult for the employee.

You can hold interviews for a hybrid internship online or in person, or over the telephone. Offer candidates the option to choose which they prefer.

Online interviews should be conducted differently from face-to-face ones. Built In have written a guide on how to conduct a video interview, aimed at organisations. UAL also provides guidance to interviewees on preparing for all interview formats. 

When inviting candidates to interview:

• Offer support for those with digital access needs. The organisation might lend a laptop or other equipment to attend an interview online.
• Offer alternatives such and an in-person or telephone interview.
• Give plenty of notice, allowing time for necessary preparations at home.
• Tell interviewees which video conferencing platform you’ll be using and give time to practice
• Suggest they do a test run with friends or family to get used to the platform.
• Check they have access to a quiet/private space for a remote interview. Offer alternatives if not.
• Be flexible with timings if the candidate only has access to quiet space at limited times, including evenings and weekends.
• Request candidates do a connection speed test before the interview. They can use tools such as Speedtest.net or Netflix’s Fast speed checker. Aim for 150 Kbps and 1.1 Mbps for a smooth Zoom video call, with lower requirements for voice only.
• Share resources on online interviews. e.g. You might find it helpful to read this short article: Video Interview Tips .

If offering in-person interviews, always offer to pay for travel costs.

If conducting telephone interview, organisations should call candidates to reduce their phone costs.

The interview is a good time for a host organisation to outline its hybrid working structure. Discuss expectations around time spent remote working and at the office. This is an opportunity to clarify what work or tasks must take place at the office.

When conducting an online interview cover:

• How the team work together using digital tools
• When you run face to face meetings
• How you maintain connection between the employee, line manager and wider team
• Explain that a candidate’s success at interview is not contingent on their digital access needs
• Check the interviewee has what they need at home to do the job. This could include
  • A safe, quiet place to work
  • Desk space and a suitable chair
  • Laptop of the right specification, and a headset and microphone where required
  • Access to a fast enough internet connection to accommodate the digital tools you use
  • Any other access requirements based on their lived experience
• Ask if they have any concerns about digital working and work together to reduce these

Online interviews can be particularly nerve-wracking. Make an extra effort to make the atmosphere friendly and more relaxed. This might include:

• Smiling and encouraging a candidate throughout
• For larger panels, ask some of the interviewers to turn off their camera to avoid overwhelming the interviewee.
• Ask all panel members to introduce themselves by name and work position.
• Holding space for more personal, informal conversation. (Like at the start and end of an in-person interview).
• Assure the candidate that technical glitches are normal. If something goes wrong, you can phone instead.
• Be aware interns may feel inadequate if they can’t meet digital or working requirements for a first job. Use supportive language such as ‘We’re asking so we can best support you’.

An induction is a period of time at the start of a new job to introduce a new worker to your organisation and their role. It is a key responsibility of an employer when taking on new staff of any kind. An induction at an office might include:

• Where key services like toilets, bike storage and kitchens are located
• What to do in an emergency, like a fire or medical emergency
• Share health and safety information and risk assessments related to the workplace
• Face to face introductions to key staff, or all staff if the team is small enough
• Providing key documents like business plan, staff handbook, policies on complaints and grievance, or environmental policies
• A chance for informally getting to know colleagues, such as a team lunch in their first week

Digital inductions can present challenges. It’s hard to join an organisation when you haven’t met anyone in person. For employees who have little workplace experience this could be even more daunting.

Employers shouldn’t assume their new worker has any prior knowledge of a working environment. They should include social elements during induction where possible.

Preparation is key

Prepare all content that you’ll be sharing in advance. Use the chat function of your video call software to share this as the meeting progresses. This will bring the content to life through discussion and encourages questioning. Give yourself enough time to move and organise things so your intern can access them. Share anything you can in advance to allow the worker to read it before you meet, where this is possible.

Mix it up

Inductions often involve the employer talking at the new staff member a lot. Mix it up. Plan self-directed tasks that the employee can complete during their induction. Ensure you give clear instruction and guidance. Allow plenty of time for questions and to complete the task itself. It’s important the intern understands what’s expected before asking them to work in a self-directed way. Meet briefly in the morning to go over tasks and let them ask questions. Then meet at the end of the day to review their work and let them ask follow up questions or address any issues.

Other useful things to cover at induction are

• Recording policy. Agree the circumstances under which work meetings are recorded, such as accessibility for those with language barriers or for reference later. Be clear that no one shares recordings outside of your organisation without consent.
• Discuss data privacy and protection. Clarify
  • That work data and documents stored on personal computers remain the possession of the organisation. They cannot be used for any other purpose.
  • Employees must delete all work data from personal devices at the end of employment.
  • Suggest employees create a work profile if using a personal device. This will make deleting data and documents simpler.
  • Consider cloud storage for business so that work documents aren’t held on employee’s computer.
• Share your risk assessment, discuss health and safety policies, and clarify safety measures.
• Ensure employees are familiar with any software needed for their role. If not, arrange and provide training or time to become familiar with it.
• Agree how you communicate digitally as a team and be consistent about this.
• Consider using formal and informal channels. If using social networks, such as WhatsApp, establish a clear code of conduct around message responses and hours of use and stick to it. 
• Don’t contact your employees outside of their working hours.
• Make sure that interns understand your organisation’s GDPR/data protection policy.
• Schedule regular check-ins with a line manager so that employees know when to expect these.
• Explain what you will cover at these meetings. For example: We’ll have a weekly meeting where we’ll go over your task list for the week, any questions that you have, any problems or challenges you’ve come up against, any opportunities or things you’d like to get involved with, any suggestions or feedback you have for us, any suggestions or feedback we have for you.
• Clarify expectations around online meeting behaviour. Clarify the response times you aim for in your organisation.
• Colleagues working with the intern should introduce themselves in their first few days.  Explore scope for early informal or social activity. Working online can limit people’s ability to form relationships with colleagues. and some structure will likely be required to support the employee to connect with the team.
• Check the pace of your work, make sure the employee is following, and that they ask questions where needed.

There are many particularities for hybrid working that should be considered.

Online meetings

Many internal and external work meetings can take place online. Online meetings offer convivence and flexibility while saving time and money on commuting. Many workers like a mix of online and offline meetings to provide natural breaks throughout the day.

As in real life, online meetings should have a clear purpose and happen only when necessary. Don’t arrange a meeting if an email will suffice. Many people experience ‘Zoom fatigue’ and it can be challenging to make video meetings more accessible and friendly. The flowcharts below are useful when considering meetings.

Online meetings can be more difficult for those with anxiety. This can be triggered where participant cameras are off, or where too many cameras are on. Take time to ask people in meetings what they prefer.

Here are a few tips to help:

• For small-scale meetings, verbally acknowledge each participant as they arrive.
• For larger meetings, encourage participants to say hello in the chat. Tell attendees this is happening.
• Allow for a few moments for relaxed informal interactions before the meeting starts.
• Use more explicit gestures to replace non-verbal cues – smile, give a visible thumbs up.
• Try to ask everyone in the meeting a specific question so they have a chance to speak.
• Use the chat function to encourage engagement. Make sure you respond to chat messages – for larger meetings, have a chat monitor on hand in case you miss a question.
• Reassure participants it’s ok to take a break, or turn off their camera or mic.
• Talk to your intern and decide between you when cameras should be off or on. Discuss any other access requirements that might support a healthy working environment.

In hybrid meetings, where some attendees are in the room and some are online, it is often better to have the meeting chair in the room. Read these tips on hybrid meetings which give useful pointers.

Online tools

Since the pandemic there has been an explosion of a range of online platforms useful in a work context. Conventional video-conferencing and digital project management tools may be all you need. More experimental meetings and events are possible too with some of these platforms.

You could explore:

• Gather Town, a video-calling interface combined with a low-fidelity 2D game. Users create avatars and can have several simultaneous video conversations. Users screens become visible/audible depending on the proximity of their avatars. 
• Discord is a voice, video and text communication service used by over a hundred million users.
• Mural is a visual collaboration tool. It’s a paid-for service, offering discounts for some non-profit organisations.
• Miro, an online collaborative whiteboard platform.

It is important to promote wellbeing in a hybrid working structure. The main wellbeing issues are usually excessive screen time (which can indicate a lack of balance between work and life) and lack of social contact.

Community and social cohesion

Community and social cohesion are important factors in wellbeing at work. It can be difficult to create social moments that would happen organically in an in-person job, but it can be done online or in a hybrid model.  Such activity benefits all staff.  Recent research on the importance of small talk in offices showed that brief, superficial, or trivial conversations unrelated to work contributes to employees’ positive emotions, promotes well-being, and fosters good workplace citizenship.

Creative Access suggests:

“Be social: Reinforcing a sense of belonging is imperative in maintaining confidence and morale. Continuing to interact socially, and not solely for the purposes of work, can allow interns to feel part of the team. One way to do this is to establish time to socialise in the first few minutes of a catch-up call. Ask your intern what they did in the evening after work, or if this is a Monday catch-up, ask them what they did over the weekend.

Alongside this, don’t hesitate to also arrange calls which may exclusively be social. As you would arrange work lunches or drinks in person, try to arrange something similar with your intern and the wider team through a video call if possible. Efforts such as these would be greatly valued by your intern and in turn, they will feel much more comfortable to speak with you openly when it’s time to talk about work.”

To increase informal social contact during the internship:

• Include interns in all remote meetings (where these are not confidential) and explore other opportunities for work shadowing.
• Support simple online relationship-building activities (discussing a relevant text / book / film, attending a webinar or panel discussion).
• Schedule social events such as virtual lunch or coffee breaks, digital staff away days, group studio visits or informal conversations with artists.
• Encourage new interns to stay engaged but ensure that social opportunities are built into working hours.  Social events after working hours should be optional.
• Consider where moments of celebration or reward happen within the job role, and how they can be maintained. 

To promote wellbeing consider these points:

• Establish clear boundaries around the working day and when everyone should switch off.
• Be thoughtful about when you send emails. Consider timing them to arrive on the interns’ working days only. 
• Provide interns with dedicated organisational email address so they can keep things separate.
• Find tasks the employee can do away from a screen.
• Alternate phone calls with video calls so a meeting can take place while walking around.
• Create protocol for online meetings etiquette around interrupting / interjecting and video use.
• Check-ins for a few minutes at the beginning of meetings for emotional sense-checking.
• Reduce hour-long meetings to 50 minutes, and 30-minute meetings to 25 minutes. This allows for the time normally spent settling into and leaving a physical space.
• Program individual wellbeing conversations with each intern.
• Offer to record meetings. Interns can watch them back afterwards to avoid information overload. Be clear that these recordings are for internal use only.
• Encourage the intern to:
  • Take a full lunch break away from the screen.
  • Block out several 15-minute breaks away from the screen into each day. If they are using a digital calendar, they can block these break times in and get reminders.
  • Regularly stretch and move, or even do some ‘deskercise’ during work hours.
  • Consider website blockers. StayFocusd for Chrome and Freedom for Safari to help focus on work. These allow people to set timers on non-work-related websites for a set period.
  • Ask questions at any time. Asking questions online (rather than casually in person) can feel awkward, so reassure them it’s OK.

Other wellbeing resources

• Dr Megan Lawrence is Microsoft’s Senior Accessibility Technical Evangelist. Read her strategies for maintaining good mental health.
• Consider the Canadian Federal Government’s guidelines to remote working that went viral on Twitter.
• Mind have compiled resources for taking care of your staff’s mental health.  Mind also offer training to encourage mental health wellbeing at work and home.
• Mindful Employer offer workplace mental health training in partnership with the NHS.

HR

All organisations, large and small, require Human Relations (HR) support when they employ staff members. This page has resources to assist with selecting HR support.

Mentoring

One way to navigate the effects of transitioning to hybrid working would be to appoint a mentor to support interns. Mentors are also very effective working with new members of staff and people who are embarking on their first role. Creative Access’s Creating an effective virtual mentoring partnership may be helpful in considering this.