Sales companies in London to debate legality of internships

Sales companies in London have become one of the main targets for job hunters looking for work experience, but they are starting to ask about the true cost of an expenses-only workforce.

On the face of it, interns and work experience bodies are a useful addition to any office. Many sales companies in London and indeed in the rest of the UK have used eager volunteers to help keep the organisation working efficiently while keeping costs down. It can even be said that by taking on interns, a company is helping out the community by training an individual in the field of work they are most interested in pursuing as a career.

In the current job market, as improved as is it on recent years, it is still vital for applicants to have plenty of relevant experience and the best way to gain this from the first rung of the career ladder is to take part in work experience and internship programmes. At best, these programmes are the perfect place to pick up important skills and learn the basics about the industry. At worst they can be little more than unpaid filing and sorting roles; unstructured and badly organised.

When competition is so high for the best entry level sales jobs in London, it’s no small wonder that internships are more popular than ever. Sales companies in London are being asked however, to monitor and report their usage of work experience personnel in order to better understand the workloads that should and shouldn’t be carried out by staff employed on the basis that it will provide mutual benefit for company and individual.

The creative industry especially has interns to thank for the backbone of their sector, with thousands of eager graduates and job seekers offering their varied skills for little more than the price of their bus fare to reach the office. Last year nine companies, including Arcadia the parent company of several high-street fashion chains were fined for breaching minimum-wage legislation after an investigation by the HMRC tax offices. The fined organisations were eventually ordered to pay out almost £200,000 to interns.

But why? The law states that if a position has set hours and duties it is legally classified as a job, and therefore the person doing it must be given the national minimum wage for carrying out said hours of work.

Sales companies in London will have to monitor the way interns are used within their organisations to ensure that the best compromise is found between offering support, training and mentorship to work experience persons while getting a good return on the man-hours it takes to offer this.

Tips for interns

• Don’t be afraid to ask questions – your new employer doesn’t expect you to know everything already, you’re at the start of your career!
• Be prepared to spend some time filling your own schedule. Even the best employers can sometimes have too much on their plate and this might mean leaving you without instructions for a few hours.
• Friendliness is your greatest asset – making tea is also a fantastic way to win your new colleagues over.
• Keep a log of your activities – you manager or team leader will find it useful to read what you’ve been working on and you’ll find it useful to transfer it straight into your CV

Tips for employers

• Your intern is trained and there to help you, don’t be afraid to delegate harder tasks to them. They might surprise you!
• Make sure you check in at least once a day, if this is the first sales environment they have worked in it can be daunting and support is always welcome.
• Be patient – eagerness is just that, a desire to succeed and make you happy. Your interns aren’t proving a point or trying to one-up you or your team. Offer advice and be polite and you will be thanked for it.
• Give your work experience staff LinkedIn networking tips and excellent references. Pay it forward, after all, they gave up their time to work for you for free. If they deserve praise, make sure they receive it.

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