MartinJenkins: Designing meaningful intern experiences
In the summer of 2022/23, professional-services firm MartinJenkins took on two TupuToa interns at their Wellington office in the first iteration of a new internship programme.
The programme focuses on improving the firm’s pipeline of Māori and Pasifika talent and on building the firm’s cultural capability and understanding of Māori and Pacific world views. It’s also important to the firm to support TupuToa’s work to develop Māori and Pacific leaders for New Zealand’s future.
The internship programme is a Recruitment and Promotion initiative aligned with the GEM’s focus on expanding the Māori and Pasifika talent pool and changing recruitment processes to be more culturally competent and holistic.
A carefully prepared recruiting process
From the outset, the programme organisers focused on ensuring the recruitment process was comfortable for prospective participants, who were interviewed over half-hour coffee catch-ups with the relevant manager and the firm’s People Experience Lead. This was intentionally more relaxed than the standard recruitment process.
The organisers sent prospective interns some questions before the coffee catch-up to give them a chance to prepare. These were not competency-based questions but rather more about the person as a whole – what their interests and strengths were, how the firm could best support them to develop, and what they would like to be involved with and achieve at the firm.
Two impressive candidates, from Waikato University and Victoria University of Wellington, were accepted into the internship programme.
“Pre-boarding” to prepare the interns
The “pre-boarding” process was key to preparing the interns for their first day. The manager for each intern kept up a strong connection with them before they started to make sure they felt supported and could raise any questions ahead of time. The interns were sent an online welcome pack ahead of their first day. The programme organisers also initiated contact between the two interns so they could meet and introduce themselves.
The organisers consulted the interns about what kind of welcome would feel most culturally appropriate and comfortable for them and thought hard about what format would be authentic for the firm.
The organisers recognised that hosting a full mihi whakatau and pōwhiri would not be authentic to where MartinJenkins was at in its te ao Māori journey. Instead, the firm welcomed the interns with a waiata and held a small but special celebratory acknowledgement. At the welcome, one of the firm's Founders spoke to the newcomers about starting out on his own career decades ago and his experiences of “imposter syndrome.”
Wrap-around support
The Founder who welcomed the interns has had a longstanding commitment to developing a relationship with TupuToa, and MartinJenkins as a whole had been working for some time on developing their capacity to deliver the intern programme. As a result, there was strong wrap-around support for the interns from the managers and their teams, as well as a lot of enthusiasm and commitment from all staff right up to the executive level.
The programme ran for 12 weeks at MartinJenkins’ Wellington office, with each intern paired with a “buddy” of a similar age from within the firm. A senior executive leader acted as a mentor, and each intern was assigned a worker to shadow.
Overall, this wrap-around support worked very well. But in future iterations of the programme, the firm will give clearer guidance to the buddy, mentor, and other key people about expectations so that they feel confident about how to support the intern.
The job briefs
The organising team wanted each intern’s job brief to provide focus, and to ensure the intern was developing their skills and knowledge in their field of study.
The briefs balanced learning on the job as a consultant and leading a specific project where either te ao Māori or a Pasifika worldview would contribute. The aim was to give the interns a more fulfilling experience, one in line with their passion to make a difference in their communities.
The interns were also taken on a field trip with a consultant working with a client, a Pacific organisation, to expose them to community-based work in a context where they could make the most of their cultural knowledge.
The interns’ projects
The projects the interns delivered each made a positive impact at MartinJenkins, and have also influenced the future shape of the intern programme.
One of the projects was leading a review of the firm’s action plan for developing its Māori cultural capability. The work culminated in a presentation on how the firm could improve the plan. This intern presented his findings in three stages that loosely mirrored the lifecycle of a pī (fledgling).
The intern impressed them with their insights and thoughtful approach and how they weaved aspects of te ao Māori through their presentation, demonstrating the immense value of Māori and Pasifika perspectives.
The other project concerned the future of the workforce in Aotearoa New Zealand. It included researching issues and challenges identified through the Reform of Vocational Education (RoVE), and the implications of regional goals and aspirations for Māori, iwi, and Pasifika.
The review identified prevalent national issues, particularly needs of the health and technology sectors that were not being adequately addressed in current regional plans, and the continued need to focus on improving labour-market outcomes for Māori and Pasifika.
Afterwards
The two interns gave valuable feedback about the programme, and the firm integrated that feedback into the development of the programme, which was repeated over the 2023/24 summer.
MartinJenkins was able to provide these first two interns with networking and support after the programme finished. A key focus for future iterations of the programme will be establishing a pathway for interns towards jobs with the firm.
Case Study Summary
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Through partnering with TupuToa to bring in Māori and Pasifika interns in a well-designed and considerate process, MartinJenkins aimed to: support the TupuToa vision of developing Māori and Pacific leaders; widen and diversify the firm’s recruitment pool; and make progress in building its overall cultural competency and awareness.
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The People Experience team and managers, supported by TupuToa, designed the internship programme and on-boarded the first two interns.
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MartinJenkins developed a programme of wrap-around support for the interns, to meet the challenge of improving the firm’s cultural competency in welcoming, on-boarding, and supporting Māori and Pasifika workers.
Interns shadowed and supported staff to gain professional experience.
They also worked on and presented specific projects, one intern taking stock of the firm’s Māori cultural capabilities, and the other researching the implications for Māori and Pacific of issues and challenges relating to the future workforce in Aotearoa.
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From the outset, the initiative had strong support from the Managing Partner and one of the firm’s Founders, who had been involved in discussions with TupuToa in previous years. With the aim of securing a partnership agreement for the first time, a business case was developed and discussed with managers and the wider Executive Leadership Team (ELT). Initial questions were raised about whether the firm was ready to provide an exceptional experience for the interns, but there was overwhelming support from the executive and managers to go ahead with the programme. The main reasons were, that TupuToa’s values aligned closely with MartinJenkins’ purpose of making Aotearoa a better place, and the internship programme supported the firm’s goals of being more comfortable in te ao Māori, of understanding Tte Tiriti and how the firm can be part of creating a more equitable society, and of improving its people’s skills in te reo Māori.
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As a result of the programme, the organisation saw the value of te ao Māori and Pasifika views in the workplace, and had a great foundation to build on for the next iteration of this internship programme.
Key lessons included the need to ensure a clear pipeline of work for interns after the programme finished, and the need to provide clear guidance to the key staff supporting the intern – that is, the buddy, the mentor, and the person the intern shadows.
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Full support from ELT.
Strong commitment and dedication from management team and people experience team.
Wrap around support was provided.
Managers and key members from the ELT attended TupuToa’s cultural competency training.
Time spent preparing and planning the recruitment, onboarding, and 12 week plan.
Projects were related to the interns’ field of study.
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TupuToa internships
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MartinJenkins
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