To help assure that they have the background needed to be effective, all interns must have completed the first year of Conexus’ Hire Tech or Project Lead The Way pre-engineering curriculum before starting their internships. Hire Tech is a two-year AML curriculum for high school students and others. Conexus developed Hire Tech in 2012 in collaboration with Indiana manufacturing and logistics companies, a community college, and the Indiana Department of Education.
Students learn concepts of safety, quality, process improvement, basic Lean theory, and the current technology in today’s AML facilities. More than 2,000 Indiana students have participated in Hire Tech courses, to date. Conexus just received a major grant from Indiana’s Department of Workforce Development to refresh the Hire Tech curriculum, keeping it up to date with current practices.
The education does not stop there. Conexus has developed an internship program for high school Hire Tech participants. This program, called Conexus Interns, was started in 2015 and expanded state-wide in 2016. Key aspects of the program are:
- The program’s focus is on converting students into employees after high school graduation or post-secondary education.
- Conexus screens the student applicants before forwarding candidates to employers.
- Conexus guides companies through the relatively easy process of hiring high-school-aged workers.
- Conexus helps plan and structure the internship.
- The interns are funded at $9 an hour and work full time for six weeks, typically in June and July.
- Funding is available for 100% of intern compensation in the first year of company participation and 50% for the second.
- The interns are given opportunities to network with each other at two, all-intern meetings.
- On-site mentoring provided by the company helps strengthen the interns’ connections with their employers and coworkers.
- Conexus thoroughly screens potential interns. Among the requirements are: a cumulative GPA of 2.0 or better on a 4.0 scale (3.0 on a 5.0 scale) and a strong interest in pursuing AML as a career.
Hebbe pointed out the importance of mentorship as part of this program. Since the internship experience is, for many students, their first introduction to working life, an on-site mentor “provides advice and counsel for the softer skills needed for the workplace,” he said. Additionally, the mentorship experience helps companies by providing their full-time employees opportunities to practice communication and team building through their interactions with, and mentorship of, the interns.
Laura Hornback, HRIS Specialist at Kauffman Engineering, Inc., reflected on the company’s experience with interns. “It was amazing. The interns got a lot of work done and their energy helped boost morale.”
Just the presence of the interns at a company can have a positive effect. Some companies have reported that their senior employees were motivated to go out of their way to find new opportunities to train the interns.
“Our experience with the Conexus interns was great,” said Susan Murray Carlock, RN, Director of Human Resources at Mursix Corporation. “This was the first time we had interns who were high school age and weren’t sure what to expect. We were more than pleased with each individual and the overall experience. We were pleasantly surprised by their level of maturity and how focused they were when working within the various departments.”
Mursix hosted four students who rotated through various departments such as Engineering, Quality, New Tooling, Die Maintenance, PC&L, and Shipping. This was designed to provide the interns an opportunity to gain enough knowledge to assist them in making more informed decisions regarding higher education opportunities. At the end of the internship period, Carlock met with all of the department heads. Every one of them said they were extremely impressed with the interns and looked forward to the opportunity to welcome them as future Mursix employees.
