I stumbled upon a recent article posted on linkedin about human resources in hospitality. One part about internship resonated with me and perhaps I could share my thoughts about that.
"One last issue for the hospitality profession is internship. An HR manager from the audience asks if the period can be extended from the mandatory six months to one year. Margaret Heng points out that the reason for six months is to prevent abuse and exploitation of the interns. However, her hotel association will press the authorities to extend to a year." (Geok Choo Ho, July 17, 2017)
As a university student in the hospitality sector and a "Ex-intern" from one of the said hotels, the motion of extending the mandatory internship period from 6 months to a year in my personal opinion is a good idea. But only with certain conditions.
The job of an intern can be sometimes ... repetitive. If it was extended to a year, 4-month rotations between 3 departments would be highly beneficial and educational for me. I could also find out which department I would truly like to start out full time after graduation.
For example, 2 front of house and 1 back of house choice like Rooms department, Food & Beverage & Sales department. Of course, this would be subjected to operational demand. But I find this scheme much more attractive to me as compared to a concentrated period of time spent in 1 department.
Here is a personal observation I had when I was reunited with my friends at school after my internship. Majority of the returning students commented that their 6 month internship was a negative experience. But to my surprise, those that went for a year of internship enjoyed theirs.
The reason for this was because those that went for a 6 month internship was heavily exploited. Some had highly irregular shifts or unfavourable working conditions. Others were plainly speaking neglected with no real training plan.
Those that went for 1 year of internship had a very productive training plan and a mentor that constantly monitored their progress.
Maybe because of the increased time frame, the hotel would be more willing to invest more resources to train the intern. Instead of exploiting the intern just for 6 months.
But at the end of the day, my biggest quarrel with internship is wages. I understand that an internship is a learning opportunity. Perhaps not the same amount of wages as the full time employee. But should they be paid significantly lesser?
I have friends that worked in a large hotel chains in Hong Kong. Their wages was below the National Minimum Wage because its not considered a full time job.
Personally, my internship wage back in Singapore was even lesser than a part time employee working full time hours. Even with overtime pay. Tips was the constant highlight of the day and I was constantly scraping for any opportunity to earn it.
In both instances, the wage was not even enough to cover for the basic living standards. Is this fair?
During my first internship in Switzerland, I was paid the National Minimum Internship Wage. It was a fair amount that allowed my life during that experience to be sustainable.
All in all, if increasing the mandatory internship period from 6 months to a year would provide interns a variety of learning experience and a fair wage that is sustainable to both the hotel and intern. It would make the learning experience a much more positive one.
Thank you for reading and please dont forget to upvote!
Read the full linkedin article here:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/hotel-doorman-gets-push-geok-choo-ho?trk=v-feed&lipi=urn%3Ali%3Apage%3Ad_flagship3_feed%3B774inrerScqW%2BfpRs5bt2w%3D%3D