Question

Many business students are familiar with the pressure to get internships or part-time jobs in their career field while in school. The surest route to the career track for many is to take on these limited-duration work assignments. Internships do give employers an easy way to size up potential applicants in a setting identical to the one in which they would perform. And unlike employees, interns are easily terminated if they don’t pan out. It’s the same situation for part-time or summer workers, who are sometimes let go at a moment’s notice. Internships are such a powerful tool for finding jobs that some students have begun to take on low-paid or even unpaid work assignments. While such “early bird” internships used to be primarily associated with large organizations, many startups have begun to attract students. For example, Remy Agamy took an internship at a three-person design company, knowing that it wasn’t likely to turn into a job. Still, in the job market she found that other prospective employers were keen on learning what she’d done in this internship. “I think we talked more about my eight-week internship than my four years of consulting experience,” she said. The value of internships for students, however, has long been questioned. While there may be a promise of a chance to learn, many students complain of doing little more than acting as unpaid, unskilled labor. Christina Isnardi is one student who felt exploited by the system. She described working 16- or 17-hour days at Lions Gate Entertainment, doing work like taking breakfast orders or working in locations far from the actual film set. “We just feel as though our dreams are holding us hostage to this unfair, unethical labor practice.” Isnardi’s experiences are not uncommon. Interns working for organizations as diverse as MTV, Warner Music Group, and Madison Square Garden describe similar experiences, which is why all these organizations have all faced lawsuits from former interns. In what might seem like a dream job, other students have negotiated great-sounding internships at organizations that regularly hire interns and pay them, but then don’t know what to do with these temporary employees. One student we know of was encouraged to make the best use of his time during his summer internship in a major city, including taking a paying job elsewhere and just staying in touch by phone when work hours overlapped! Because of his ingenuity, he reported it was a very productive summer, but the internship didn’t provide the learning opportunity he was seeking. Many major organizations maintain internship programs as part of a broader corporate social responsibility (CSR) value. Whether internships have value remains an open question. Most of the controversy does suggest that students need to know the details before agreeing to these arrangements, because not all internships offer a fair living wage or a strong career experience. HR departments are responsible for monitoring and designing internship programs. Question 1: Discuss the main concerns in the case. Why are these problems related to OB and HR? explain.

Question 2: As an upcoming employee student, what specific characteristics would you look for in an internship? Is there any form of good practice in intership at Lions Gate Entertainment? Discuss.

Question 3: In line with your answers in question 1, what are the recommendations you can offer? Be s[pecific with your answers.

Answer 1

1. The Main concern of the case is all about the Internship programme. The present study discusses the nature of internship programmes initiated by various organizations. Basically Internship program is a kind of part time work assignments which are generally short-term in nature. More and more students are trying employed in organizations on part time basis or short term contract basis primarily to meet their education expenses simultaneously with an opportunity to learn nitty- gritty of businesses. Further the case also discussed various problems associated with this kinds of arrangements like exploitations at the workplaces by employers, getting too less salary/compensations,unsafe work environments, temporary or short term nature of the work assignments etc.These problems are part and parcel of every organization irrespective of size and nature of the business. These are related to OB and HR in the sense that HR is considered as integral part of an organization which deals with employees and employer-employee relations.
2. As an upcoming employee student, before accepting any Internship work assignment, I will see following characteristics
   • The nature and size of the business and how I can match my acquired skills to that particular business or organization
   • How conducive is the work environment of the organization in accepting me as their intern
   • What are the career progression opportunities available after the internship programme
   • How much remuneration I can expect
3. As per the description of the case, I do not find any form of good practices in internship at Lions Gate Entertainment.
4. As I said , as per the current information, there is no good practices in internship programme run by Lions Gate Entertaunment.In fact one employee or intern of the Lions Gate says working 16-17 hours a day in the organization they are being exploited and moreover they feel like that they are working like taking breakfast orders or working in far off locations .

As far as recommendation are concerned for Lions Gate, I would like to suggest few things such as

• Unethical labour practices shall be stopped. Interns shall be treated like other employees and more importantly like human beings
• Work culture shall be improved
• Dignity of labour shall be maintained
• Employees and interns shall be treated equally and compensated appropriately