Interns vs volunteers

marc · June 2004

I have started some research into this area to try and understand formal distinctions between interns and volunteers. In the case I am researching the interns are not paid positions. I have been on the DOL site looking for clarification but I am not getting results.

So while I continue the research project I thought I would post this and ask for some input from the forum. I know it's late on Friday afternoon for the Eastern time zone, but any clarification would be great.

Pork · June 2004

MARC: Interns we have used were college age students and we were able to work with the University and a primary instuctor to allow our facilities and our animals to be the research pigs and facilities for the interns studies program. We did not pay for nor did we keep her hours over the 6 weeks of her hands on study. The company did reap the benefit of her presence and the work that she did with the animals during her study. We were asked to provide the professor our thoughts on her work and attitude which somehow was considered in her final grade.

Volunteers in private business may cause some real nightmares if you "permit" or allow the volunteer to "suffer" work which would otherwise be paid for by the company engaged in commerce.
By statutory definition, the term "employ" includes"to suffer or permit to work." Work not requested but suffered or permitted to be performed is work time that must be paid for by the employer. Even an employee, who voluntarily continues to work at the end of the shift to finish an assigned task or to correct errors, has been permitted or allowed to suffer work and must be paid.

If yours is a community service non-profit you might be able to use volunteer efforts on the advancement of your organization's behalf, but then your organization is most likely not involved in interstate commerce.

Hope this helps.

PORK

marc · June 2004

Pork, thanks for replying so late in your work day.

Yes we are a non-profit and do not engage in interstate commerce. We get plenty of volunteers for various projects, including some individuals working off mandated community service.

I am clear about our relationship with a normal volunteer. We have used both paid and non-paid interns in the past. These internships have been connected with a formal course of study through a local university.

My issues come with understanding the formal relationship of an intern to the company handbook, workers compensation, and the like.

For instance, do we give them a handbook and highlight the sections that apply to them or just live with some sort of informal arrangement and let it go at that?

Pork · June 2004

Marc: We did give our intern an employee handbook so that she would be able to read and understand "how to operate as a person in our facility", she of course was covered by her student medical, but we still had to be concerned for safety issues and W/C which we worked out with the university and our carrier, and agreed that we would cover her medical expenses if injuried in the frame of working in our facilities. It is an issue that the company and the intern or volunteer must understand before something happens.

PORK

Don D · June 2004

Good point about the workers' comp. I'm also Safety Manager and hate to admit that I do not know who covers our Co-Ops. We always have a Mississippi State University Engineering student or two on board, each semester (4 times per year). We pay them $1900 per month. They have no company benefits other than paid holidays since we do enter them into our payroll system. They DO have to be formally enrolled in the school's Co-Op program and that division of the school lines up on-campus interviews and monitors the relationship once we choose the ee. We treat them as regular employees, handbook and all and expect them to perform and behave accordingly. First thing Monday morning, I will find out what comp coverage they have. We also use a high school Co-Op year round from the Vocational Class at the local high school. She comes in at 3 and works till 5 and throughout the summer 11-2. We pay $6.50 per hour and really get our dollar's worth with this program. I know this is not your question, but I insist that these students get more from this association than WE do. We don't take advantage of any of them. They're excellent ambassadors for our company and will continue to be a long time after they leave us.

marc · June 2004

I know this question is vague, but both of you (Pork and Don) are hitting the nail on the head for me and I appreciate it.

Workers Comp for our unpaid interns that come out of the University of Nevada is paid for by the university. If we pay the intern, we also pay the WC.

Our Exec Dir is saying that this relationship is for the student and we should expect no benefit from the relationship - which seems counter intutitive to me. Yes, we get a benefit and often if is a great deal of value. There are times when all it does is cost us valuable training and supervision time and the rewards to us are few.

I am just struggling to put this area in a box somewhere between employee and volunteer. Perhaps I need to think through it some more to see where they fit.

Your responses are great. Thanks.

Don D · June 2004

I think it's assinine for your director to say you should derive no benefit. We expect, no, demand, that the intern produce for us. He/she is assigned to a particular manager(s) and must produce computerized drawings and present a variety of paper recommendations for cost savings and lean initiatives as well as be a 'hands on' participant in machining and assembly and it is essential that the intern work in work-cells hands-on, standing on his feet, getting dirty and sweating just like employees, turning out a viable product which he's held responsible for. He definitely produces or we would not utilize another participant from the college program. We aren't a social program. We agree to utilize these students for a price and a work product, and in turn we pay a good wage and provide a meaningful work experience that's unequalled. Period.

njjel · June 2004

We are a non-profit and have both interns and volunteers. Some interns are paid through either grants or federal work study and others are here for class credit only. An intern usually is her for a minimal amount of time where a volunteer may serve for years. The volunteers are of course not paid. Without our volunteers we would drown!

Don D · June 2004

I hope you don't mean literally the comment that they 'are here for class credit only'. x:-)

njjel · June 2004

Don - Meaning they are not being paid. Geesh!

Pork · June 2004

MARC: We too, derive a benefit, but a more suttle approach than Don's; we are involved with the primary instructor and we help him to identify the student "intern project" that will fit into our on-hand research, requirements. The school's need for control of the curriculum, and the student's need for on-hand work with the animals satisfies our need for the documented evidence to solve our concerns. Very seldom will there be an intern without an opportunity to assist us in the discovery and research of a concerned issue. The last one did a study on "the connection of air quality, temperature, and the impact on "baby pigs" in Mississippi". Our climate is definately a force to deal with in both the summer and winter extremes. Weather does effect the medical condition of the babies, which is what we are all about!

Interns for short runs helps us to put someone on the development of the facts and conditions of an issue and does not take away human resources from our primary mission of producing baby pigs. Interns for the long run would be more adminstrative and primary for the benefit of the student and would be excess to our needs for daily operation. This student would be placed in our MIT (manager-in-training) program or we would not be involved. The MIT (intern) would earn $500.00 per week gross, while workinf on the job and learning. The student will be given elective credit for the the hours spent on the job and developing his/her knowledge of "pig production".

Ihope this helps you to develop an internship program that fits into your companies' over all business plan, otherwise, it would be as your senior leader says, it is only for the benefit of the student.

PORK

Crout · June 2004

Marc, we're also a non-profit, and use many interns in our Behavioral Health division. This post is interesting because I've never thought about the WC issue before. The interns are unpaid, so I've been considering them as non-employees, so to speak, and so they do not submit paperwork for taxes, I-9's, etc. I don't know what your experience has been, but our intern program has been of great benefit to us in reagrd to recruiting. Quite often, we hire the same folks who have interned for us and it save us a lot of time and money.

njjel · June 2004

Our w.c. policy is written to cover volunteers/interns etc. So you might want to check into that with your carrier.

blw · June 2004

We are non-profit and have regular volunteers and have had two "interns" since I've been here. I have given them both employee handbooks and asked them to abide by our policies regarding EEOC, dress codes, code of conduct, etc. I also have had them sign a brief agreement that they understand this is an internship for their benefit and they will not be paid for their time by us.

It has beneficial for both. Though I agree with you Marc, that sometimes the training time taken can be a pain!

marc · June 2004

We do complete background checks on both interns and volunteers that interface with the children and families who are our clients. We do expect them to abide by the applicable sections of our handbook.

I have always expected that we would get actual work from these interns, whether they are paid or not, and for the most part we have been. Our Exec Dir does get nursing students in for a very brief internship. So far their assignments have been strictly related to the nursing program they are going through with very little benefit to us. Other intern programs are clearly a win/win for the student and for us, especially those that are going through the licensed Marriage and Family Therapy programs. After these folks have been joined at the hip for a time with a supervising therapist, they go through full-on therapy with their own set of clients. Very clearly just like a full on employee. They even get paid an hourly rate after a brief introductory period.

I expect to find out more today about our Exec Dir's angst with respect to this program.

Your input is execellent as usual. I am going to print out this thread, highlight the salient points and guide our discussions through this little minefield.

Thanks again for the help.

AJ SPHR · July 2004

I'd like to resurrect this thread to ask whether it's possible to offer an unpaid internship program without involving the university?

The General Counsel received a call from a former Board Member who has a daughter on her summer break and will be starting her Junior or Senior year of law school in the Fall. He was wondering if we had any unpaid internship opportunities for a 4-6 week period. The General Counsel is interested and knows or one or two research projects she could help. However, he would like to have it be an unpaid assignment, and the student is not interested in working through a formal university program for credit.

I, like Marc, have tried searching on DOL's FLSA site to try to determine whether this is even possible, but have had no luck. After reading this thread, I'm thinking that we would have to pay this intern at least minimum wage for the work she produces.

Thoughts anyone?

pork1 · July 2004

AJ SPHR: I believe that the condition of employer/employee relationship would control an unpaid opportunity without University or student connection. If your organization is involved with interstate commerce in the production of something considered a product verses a service, renders you helpless, to call it anything other than "permitted to work" or "suffered to work" and thus require the company to be willing to pay at least minimum wage. The other posters in the "not for profit" category have both volunteers and interns with and without payment.

PORK

AJ SPHR · July 2004

Hi Pork,
Thanks for your reply. As I continued researching old threads on HR Hero I found more resources and references to actual FLSA language that does lead me to agree with you - that we cannot offer an unpaid internship because we will benefit from the relationship and it's not a pure "training" opportunity.

I appreciate you confirming it for me!

marc · July 2004

As Pork suggested, we are a non-profit and do have several volunteers, some on a couple of long-term projects. Those volunteer programs look very much like a college intern program without the college credit. So what you are suggesting is possible in our type of environment. I would defer to those in other industries for implications in the for profit world.

rad · July 2004

I'm in the for-profit world and we pick up many college interns every summer. They are compensated and are covered under state mandated WC guidelines. We don't use volunteers.

Dutch2 · July 2004

Ditto.. we are a banking business and we made the decision several years back that even if the person working requested an internship through the local HS or University we would put everyone on board as an employee of the bank and would pay them at least min. wage. This has worked out very well for both us and the students. A few of the students were very surprised to learn that they would receive compensation, even if only min. wage, for their temporary position.
Good luck,
Dutch2

njjel · July 2004

Yes we are non-profit and have both interns paid and unpaid and volunteers (thank goodness for the volunteers).

Interns vs volunteers

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