How to attract the right interns with a happy work environment
About the Author: Abhishek Gharat is a technology enthusiast and the co-founder of Kraftpixel. He talks about the importance of keeping a friendly and fun work environment.
In July 2014, we evolved into a startup from being freelancers for around 4-5 years. After working for a year from our residence, workload demanded that we expand. We moved into our first office in October 2015. Compared to all other platforms that we explored, Internshala was the only one which gave us the platform to find the right candidates. I mention ‘only’ because only Internshala allowed us to freely contact the candidates prior to selection – to be able to understand them better and check whether they were a good fit for our tribe before taking a call. We are now running the third batch of interns, all hired via Internshala.
We believe in a work environment that is friendly and strongly care about the work-life balance, because we realize that the people who work/intern with us are spending the best years of their life in helping the company grow. In return, we try to do things that keep the workplace lively and happy. And this has worked well; we have had interns coming in all the way from Jabalpur, Kerala, and other parts of the country to our office in Vasai, Mumbai.
This is a small list of things, we have come to identify, that works:
1. Bean Bags – Get them; everyone loves them!
2. Indoor games – We have limited space so we cannot go for table tennis, pool etc., so we’ve got a good set of these. We have Monopoly (the new electronic card based one, all cashless), Connect 4, Uno cards, and Jenga (that’s the favorite of our current interns).
3. Fridays – Keep them relaxed. Everyone deserves fun. On one Friday per month, we order from a good local restaurant. This is followed by two holidays as weekends are off at KraftPixel.
4. Very few restrictions – There’s no bar on using Facebook or WhatsApp as long as the work gets done on time. Time management is automatically learned. Clothes are casual.
5. Joining selfie tradition – Our entire team gathers for a selfie with the new intern on her joining day.
6. The resort day – As we enter into about two months of an internship batch, our entire team takes a day out and head to a resort. It is our way of saying thank you to our interns, for joining us on this journey of learning. The Water Kingdom in Gorai, Mumbai has been a popular destination.
7. A neatly designed certificate – Design matters; I cannot stress this enough. Interns may stay just for 3-6 months, but the certificate that you give is going to stay with them during their entire career trajectory. Make sure that it’s well designed!
We are a startup; we do not know everything in the world. We also don’t know whether the things we do to maintain a happy work environment will always work, but we realize that it’s important to try and, more importantly, to make employees/interns a part of deciding what activities we can indulge in.
And we’ll find more ways as we grow with them!
