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Buschjost treats interns fairly:
Collecting practical experience in a structured manner
“With increasing frequency companies are compensating for fulltime job cuts with poorly paid or indeed unpaid internships. This makes ambitious and talented young workers immensely uncertain. Investments are not being made in future specialists and managers and over periods of years young, talented people have not been receiving the appropriate support” Lutz Missbach, Personnel Manager at Buschjost Norgren GmbH + Co. KG., explains. “The company does not want to join this trend and has therefore committed itself as a “Fair Company”.
Fair Company is an initiative by the job and business magazine, Junge Karriere (Young Career). The magazine awards the “Fair Company” seal of approval to companies, which state that they are against the so-called Internship Generation and act accordingly. For this purpose the companies have to adhere to five rules:
Fair Companies...
- Do not substitute full-time employment with interns, trainees or so-called volunteers, guest students etc.
- Do not feed the hopes of any university graduate who has applied for a permanent position by offering him or her an internship,
- Do not lure any interns by offering vague prospects of a full-time job thereafter,
- Primarily offer internships for the purpose of vocational orientation during the training phase,
- Pay interns an appropriate expense allowance.
Over 1,000 reputable companies, including big groups and medium-sized businesses, but also media companies and agencies, have so far publicly committed themselves to the "Fair Company" initiative and have promised not to engage any highly qualified graduates for poorly paid internships and positions as guest students. Junge Karriere brought the initiative into being in October 2004 with 30 member companies.
The editorial office performs checks to make sure that the criteria are met. All graduates or interns have the chance to report infringements by companies on the magazine website. These are followed up. After two verifiable infringements the respective company is excluded from the initiative. Once a year the magazine also publishes a Fair Company Guide in which – up to the relevant date of going to press - all Fair Companies are listed with their full addresses and contacts as well as information on the remuneration for internships etc.
Lutz Missbach sees it as almost a matter of course that Buschjost has joined the initiative: “An internship is an opportunity for direct practical experience of the responsibilities and demands of a given field of activity. Hence it is a crucial part of training and an important step towards further vocational development. Only those companies that place great importance on the incumbent responsibility for supervising interns have a chance of recruiting excellent, well-qualified employees in the future.”
Each year Buschjost employs approximately 20 interns who are mainly deployed in the technical field. For example, at Buschjost technicians write papers as part of the technicians’ advanced training or supervision is provided for diploma theses. Buschjost is also active in the fields of reintegration after parental leave and vocational rehabilitation.
In addition to this, each year Buschjost provides 30 to 40 internships for school pupils. Priority is given to neighbourhood schools with which the company currently has an agreement for school partnerships: the Hauptschule Nord (general secondary school), Realschule Süd (intermediate secondary school) and the Immanuel-Kant-Gymnasium (grammar school) in Bad Oeynhausen.
The company offers the interns numerous opportunities to gather practical experience and to enhance their chances on the labour market. “Structured supervision during the internship is very important to us for this purpose” Lutz Missbach explains. To him it is a matter of course for the services rendered to be adequately remunerated: “As a rule the interns receive the same pay as apprentices in the first year of their apprenticeship in the relevant vocation. However, we also provide individual solutions by, for example assuming tuition fees and travelling expenses”. The personnel manager has no compunctions about assessments from interns. On the contrary, at Young Career their attention is drawn to the opportunity to give an assessment. And in future there are plans to introduce a corporate feedback form.
Press Contact:
Buschjost Norgren GmbH + Co. KG
Sandra Lauer
Detmolder Str. 256
32545 Bad Oeynhausen
Phone: +49 (0) 5731 / 791 -181
Fax: +49 (0) 5731 / 791 –77 181
sl@buschjost.de
www.buschjost.de
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27.02.2009 |
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