Intern Retention: Training, Mentoring, and Long-Term Loyalty
This paper examines the challenge of retaining interns and employees who complete two-year development programs. It argues that successful retention depends on more than competitive pay — interns must feel valued, receive meaningful work, and benefit from ongoing mentoring and coaching. The paper draws on sources in human resources, nursing, and organizational learning to show that poor retention is costly in both financial and organizational terms. It concludes that continuous training and internal mentorship are essential to converting interns into committed long-term employees, and that companies failing to invest in these areas risk losing high-potential talent to competitors.
- The Nature of Internships and Development Programs: Defining intern-employer agreements and retention challenges
- Creating a Positive Intern Experience: Workplace culture and supervisor attitudes driving retention
- Non-Financial Motivators and Mentorship: Learning, mentoring, and internal promotion as retention tools
- The Cost of Poor Retention: Financial and organizational losses from losing interns
- Continuous Training as a Retention Strategy: Ongoing training as the key to long-term employee commitment
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What makes this paper effective
- The paper integrates diverse sources — human resources commentary, nursing research, and organizational theory — to build a well-rounded argument about retention strategy.
- It moves logically from defining the internship experience to diagnosing retention failure to prescribing solutions, giving the argument a clear cause-and-effect structure.
- Quoted evidence is used efficiently; each citation is followed by the author's interpretation, keeping analysis, not quotation, at the center of each paragraph.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates effective use of cross-disciplinary evidence: by drawing on a study of nurse internship programs alongside general HR literature, the author shows how retention principles apply across industries. This comparative move strengthens the universality of the argument without overstating it.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens with a framing question about long-term career planning, then defines the intern-employer relationship. Subsequent paragraphs address supervisor attitude and workplace culture, non-financial motivators, the financial and organizational costs of turnover, and finally the necessity of post-internship training. A brief works-cited list closes the paper in MLA style.
The Nature of Internships and Development Programs
Interns in every workplace are often the subject of frequent jokes, the allegation being that they merely "get coffee" rather than engage in substantive, meaningful work. The typical agreement between an intern and a company is that an intern — usually someone young, almost always inexperienced, and invariably eager to gain knowledge of a particular field — agrees to work for little or no pay in exchange for building their résumé and gaining experience in their chosen field. The subsequent two-year development program serves as a transitional phase between the training period and permanent employment.
However, retention may be difficult if the employee who has devoted time and effort to the workplace feels that he or she did not receive the education desired and was merely treated like a glorified administrative assistant. "With the right program, interns will stay with the company upon graduation. While many companies have internship programs, the few that focus on quality of experience and intern retention enjoy the best returns on investment" (Recruiting News, 2008). A good return on investment from an intern means that the intern remains with the company to justify the training expense, while also adding value through his or her later work.
Creating a Positive Intern Experience
First and foremost, the intern must feel as though he or she would enjoy coming to work every day during the internship and training experience. An intern who observes unhappy coworkers or full-time employees who regret their employment is unlikely to stay. Second, the intern must feel comfortable with his or her supervisor. The supervisor's attitude must communicate that he or she views the intern as an asset.
"The ability of the employee to speak his or her mind freely within the organization is another key factor in employee retention. Does your organization solicit ideas and provide an environment in which people are comfortable providing feedback? If so, employees offer ideas, feel free to criticize, and commit to continuous improvement. If not, they bite their tongues or find themselves constantly in trouble — until they leave" (Heathfield 2008, p. 1). Although an intern is just "learning the ropes," if he or she feels that they are contributing to the organization, that their ideas and opinions are solicited, and that they are a valued member of the team, they will want to remain on that team.
Non-Financial Motivators and Mentorship
The future prospect of a high-paying position and attractive benefits will obviously factor into an employee's decision to remain with a company, but these considerations are not the only factors. Indeed, an intern's willingness to work for little or no pay is a tribute to the individual's hunger to learn and to make a real commitment to the future of an organization. But no one interns merely for the joy of word processing and serving for free.
The intern wants a great deal of satisfaction that cannot be quantified: exposure to training, the mentoring of his or her talents, and the sense of gaining a window into an industry — seeing how things work, and securing a foothold in a company where he or she will be treated with respect. "Training can also be the means for positive change in any organization; however, training is not enough to create lasting change without a vital link that will help your employees transfer what they learned into real-life application. That vital link is a strong coaching program" (Villegas & Villegas 2006). The intern must also know that merit-based promotions are a realistic prospect for permanent employees, and that the company does not primarily seek its management talent from outside but mentors it from within.
Works Cited
Heathfield, Susan. "Top 10 Ways to Retain Your Top Employees." About.com. 2007. 18 Mar. 2008.
Smith, M. K. "Peter Senge and the Learning Organization." The Encyclopedia of Informal Education. 2001. Last updated 18 Mar. 2008. www.infed.org/thinkers/senge.htm
"Recruiting News: A Turnkey Approach to Internships." Recruiting News. 2008. 18 Mar. 2008.
Strauss, Judy. "An OR Nurse Internship Program That Focuses on Retention." AORN Journal. Sept. 1997. 18 Mar. 2008. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0FSL/is_n3_v66/ai_19854929
Villegas, Rick, and Janel Villegas. "Training Is Not Enough." Saipan Tribune. 2006. 18 Mar. 2008.
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