Intern Season

You Are Invited!

Session 1: From Management to Leadership: Essential Skills

Your Primary Responsibilities: Preparation, Performance and Productivity of Your Team
Four Critical Skills: Communicate, Teach, Evaluate, Give Feedback
Situational Leadership: When and How to Provide Direction and Support

Session 2: Critical Issues in the Workplace

Employment Laws You Need to Know: Employment-at-Will, FLSA, ADA, EEO, Anti-Discrimination
Employment Law: When to Terminate
Creating a Culture of Excellence: Courtesy, Professionalism and Respect

Session 3: Conflict Resolution and Difficult Conversations

Difficult Conversations: When Things are Not Working and Termination is Necessary
Strategies for Managing and Understanding Interpersonal Conflict
Motivating Top Performers and Performance Expectations for All

These sessions are geared towards new supervisors to gain a foundation, and senior/veteran supervisors to polish old skills and learn new skills.

All for only $450/attendee!

Want to provide this valuable training to your entire team? Sign up 4 individuals from your business and the 5th one is FREE! (Contact us at 605.335.8198 for details.)

Are You Ready for Intern Season?

It’s almost intern season, when students are out for the summer and look to build their resume.

You’ll recall that a few years back, the Department of Labor (DOL) dropped its strict “six-factor test” for determining whether an intern qualifies as an employee entitled to at least minimum wage and overtime pay, under the Federal Labor Standards Act (FLSA).

Under this test, the DOL considered all interns to be employees unless each of the very specific factors in the test were met. As a result, companies generally had to make their internship programs paid to avoid running afoul of the FLSA. In its place, the DOL adopted a more employer-friendly “primary beneficiary” test.

More Wiggle Room for Employers

Since the courts were favoring the primary beneficiary test, the DOL changed its internship rules.

The new rules require employers to consider who’s the primary beneficiary of the internship, the intern or the employer. If it’s the latter, the internship must be paid. The list of factors used by courts to determine the status of the internship includes the following:

The internship, even though it includes actual operation of the facilities of the employer, is similar training which would be given in an educational environment;
The internship experience is for the benefit of the intern;
The intern does not displace regular employees, but works under close supervision of existing staff;
The employer that provides the training derives no immediate advantage from the activities of the intern; and on occasion its operations may actually be impeded;
The intern is not necessarily entitled to a job at the conclusion of the internship; and
The employer and the intern understand that the intern is not entitled to wages for the time spent in the internship.

Important note: Not every factor in this list needs to be met in order for an internship to be legally unpaid. Courts may also consider additional factors, if they’re relevant to the situation.

Did You Know?

There have been an increasing number of federal courts who have been rejecting the six-factor test in favor of the primary beneficiary test, which was first laid out in Glatt v. Searchlight Pictures in 2015.

In this case, three unpaid interns sued Searchlight, claiming they acted as employees and should’ve been paid minimum wage and overtime. The interns did get experience working on movie sets, but they also took lunch orders, answered phones and took out the trash.

The company said the court should’ve weighed who received the primary benefit, but the court said that was impossible to prove and ruled in favor of the interns.

If you’re thinking about bringing on interns this summer, educate yourself on the law and industry norms so you have all the information you need to make a smart decision. Ultimately, clearly communicating expectations for both you and your intern will make this as simple as possible.

But to make it even simpler: Don’t exploit your interns, make the relationship mutually beneficial, and pay if you can.

Still have questions? Give us a call!

605.335.8198

ALTERNATIVE HR| www.alternativehr.com | 605.335.8198

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