Blog 4
Government vs. Not For Profit vs. Corporate organisation will become a series of blogs that I will write on. Today I will focus on the getting paid vs. being a volunteer aspect.
was previously doing two PR placements: one with government and one for a not for Profit organisation. I wanted to share a comparison with everyone as prior to this, and over the summer break, I was working for a corporate company and was working in a Marketing PR role which I was I was getting paid to do.
Corporate
Getting paid to do a role sometimes allows you some freedom. Firstly, you are accountable for your decisions, and secondly, this is what you are getting paid to do. In a small office in Perth, that is part of a medium global organisation, I was give a lot of control, a lot of responsibility, and had to work ten hours a day just to get everything ready for the event. It was a hectic time over the month leading up to the event, but I was so happy to do the extra work as I was really enjoying what I was doing. My boss also rewarded me with a full day off (with pay!), a bunch of beautiful flowers and the offer of marketing position within our Asia Pacific department.
Internships and Volunteers
As an intern, or volunteer with an organisation, it is sometimes difficult to determine your actual role within the company. Volunteers and interns seem to be taken on as additional ‘hands’ – by this I mean that volunteers can quite often feel that they are not doing anything but without them the organisation would have to pay people to do these tasks.. Volunteers help reduce costs associated with any event. For example, you need volunteers to direct guests to toilets, or parking areas or serve food at breaks.
Not getting paid, alleviates any responsibility and commitment. There is not real pressure to perform. However, volunteering can be really rewarding when you are doing something for a cause, or helping out at an event that you believe (for example: Earth Hour).
Some organisations do not know how to use volunteers efficiently. The not-for-profit organisation that I was working for did not have a clue what to do with a Public Relations intern. Not having a focus on Public Relations in the association, they were unsure what role I could fill or how I could truly benefit the organisations.
Volunteers need to know that what they are doing is being appreciated by the organisations.
Here are a couple of questions for you: As an intern, do you feel appreciated? Do you feel that what you are doing is beneficial to the organisation?
6 comments:
Hey Ecoruth,
I thought I would attempt to answer your questions… I am currently working as an intern at an organisation (a role for which I do not get paid) and yet I believe I am fully utilised by PTC. I have to say, I don’t entirely believe in your statement that not getting paid alleviates the responsibility or commitment, or that there is no pressure to perform. I view my work at PTC as a stepping stone and I see myself in my day to day liaisons and activities as a representative of the company. Because I am an intern and because I am not a payed employee I feel a very strong need to perform at a high level and earn my employers respect. I am lucky to have a position within an organisation which is fully aware of the benefits of Public Relations, have a sound knowledge of the tasks required and trust me enough (now they have read a lot of my work and are aware of my competency) to give me free reign on a few of their projects.
I think in saying that I have probably already answered your second question. I feel the work I am doing is extremely relevant to PTC. I am undertaking tasks which would otherwise be forgotten, not because they are unimportant, but because of the size of the staff force and time constraints. I feel as though the work I am doing is of great help because it lessens the weight resting on the shoulders of the sole Public Relations officer within this organisation.
Having said all of this though, I believe the points you raise are important discussion topics that would coerce some very interesting responses from those involved in PR393.
Chelle x
Hey,
I just thought Id say what a great topic that is to blog on. I've recently finished my internship in a Government department and you have raised some really good points. What I discovered though was that at my public affiars office the issues they dealt with were contentious and myself as an intern was not aloud or able to partake. This was really frustrating for me as it ment that there was a lot I could not do.
Although they had a structured PR environment as an intern I did feel useless some days.
I was fortunate however to be given an event to work on, but for the length of time I spent at my placement I feel I could have been of much more help than I was allowed to be. I feel that this was due to the fact I was unpaid and without the training they give their staff on all the aspects of the environment and how to deal with their issues they felt they could not pass on specific goverment tasks to me.
I hope that was as insightful for you as much as your blog was insightful for me.
Camilla
wao, this is a good topic and actually i agree with Camilla on this one when she says sometimes you can feel useless on the job because they do not give you some work due to the fact that maybe they just believe you not qualified enough or you will not put more effort in your job.
i was an intern at one of the best PR agency in the world but being appreciated was out of the question, they did not even pay us for their bad behaviour. so sometimes as an intern you will get luck and find a good company with good people but sometimes you just get unlucky.
so getting paid is not a problem at all the problem is are you learning well are you benefiting something from that company, that is what matters when you are an intern..i hope i tried answering your question.
well i think i will somehow agree with you. i was doing my internship with a media design company and i was not being paid. i believe when you are not being paid, bosses tend to take advantage of you...like you have no feelings, and they can manipulate you anyhow they want.they dont appreciate your work, they make you the slave...my bosses always reminded me that they did me a big favour by allowing me to do an internship in their company, therefore i had to do whatever they asked without complaining, which of course i couldnt take.
so i always had to have some kind of misunderstandings with them because i showed them that just because they gave me an opportunity to work with them, for no pay, doesnt mean they hav to take advantage of me.
atleast if u get paid and do all the work, ur pay is a consolation.that atleast u are working urself out for something..
it high time a lot of companies start admiring what interns do for them, because we help them cut on their costs.....so we should be given some appreciation atleast...
Thankyou everyone for your contributions to this blog. Sorry I did not get back earlier to reply to each of you.
It is an interesting topic and it is great to see all the different view points.
20 days as a placement does not seem enough to me, but this does not mean that I want to work more than this! It is a great opportunity to experience PR in the real world, but sometimes it takes a little longer than 20 days to realise what each persons capabilities are. I know that my first internship, creating mailing lists was something that they described as 'so valuable' for the association. Yet, I was not learning from this experience. I did not have any supervision, and was working from home every Saturday so it was really difficult to guage if what i was doing was useful or not.
Best of luck to you all and thankyou (again) for your comments.
I'm glad someone raised this topic, cause I thought I was the only one who didn't get all they could have from their placement.
I think because taking on an intern at PMH is a fairly new process, the feeling you get as an intern is like being a visitor. This was not because they didn't need the help or were unwelcoming in any way, it was just because no one particularly had the assigned task of delegating the intern with things to do and everyone was friendly but just got on as if you didn't exist.
I had to make myself a part of the team by initiating tasks to do and volunteering to do things for people, otherwise my whole placement would have been like the first few days, where I had no tasks assigned to me for large periods of time.
It does depend on the organisation but I'd say with work experience it is up to you what you get out of it and you just have to find things to do. Ofcourse if you are not being permitted to participate it does make it hard, luckily I found that if I asked, usually I was allowed to take part in tasks I was not initially included in.
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