Highlights:
- What are interns really looking for in an internship program?
- RingCentral prioritizes intern wellness and development throughout “Intern Week”
Wellness & Development
Recently, I had the opportunity to sit in on RippleMatch’s REConference summit to hear from students across the country on what they REALLY look for in an internship. Over and over again, students mentioned prioritizing companies that authentically focus on shared values. These values include professional development, work-life balance, a sense of community, and social impact, among others. It’s one thing to say you prioritize these values, but how do you actually practice what you preach?
At RingCentral, we take a holistic approach to our internship program. We consider feedback and the evolving landscape of our workforce to strategically make the most of our interns’ time with us. Every hour of our interns’ summer is designed to help them develop professionally, financially, socially, and so on. We promote wellness and development during onboarding and throughout the program with events focusing on early career finances, prioritizing work-life balance, networking and presentation skills, time management, communication, and relationship building.
Last month, we celebrated our interns for National Intern Day with not just one but five days of events focusing on all aspects of intern wellness and development.
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Intern Week
We kicked off the week focusing on mindfulness, partnering with CampusYoga to host a live event, exclusively for RingTerns, on incorporating yoga into their workday routine. The session fit neatly into a 30-minute block where our interns learned the art of chair yoga and meditation, practicing tools to relieve tension, enhance well-being, and improve productivity.
Tuesday brought an opportunity to engage with our Generations employee resource group (ERG) through a co-hosted event. Our Generations ERG focuses on fostering connection and understanding between technology professionals of all ages, celebrating their unique stories and perspectives, discovering similarities, and collectively inspiring innovation through inclusivity. They were the perfect co-host for our intern group to further engage with our company over a cool treat in our four U.S. offices. Outside of this week, we highly encourage our interns to get actively involved with our 9 ERGs. As part of this involvement, we pair each intern with an ERG mentor for the entirety of their internship, fostering a supportive and engaging experience.
Rolling into Wednesday, we hosted one of our program’s Power Hour sessions with Evan Mitchell, Senior Director of Partner Sales Specialists. These Power Hours are designed to give our interns access to leadership through a 1-hour virtual meeting where the topics range from personal career stories and helpful career advice and tips to what a typical day as a RingCentral leader may look like. Bonus: this session was actually hosted by our University & DEI Programs Intern, Brianna Dooley!
For the main event, National Intern Day on Thursday, July 27th, we focused more on “life” wellness and creating a fun day for our interns. Interns received merch on-site, had the opportunity to snap a photo with our fun picture frame, received career advice from all of RingCentral via our RC Spirit chat group, and enjoyed a night out with their peers and mentors. These offsite activities included candle making, game show events, TopGolf, and painting classes and each event ended with a group dinner.
To wrap up the week, our interns volunteered an hour of their time through a Goodera-hosted event – creating audiobooks to comfort ailing children at Ronald McDonald House Charities and focusing on the importance of donating time to create an impact in others’ lives.
Lasting Impact
While all these events and activities on the surface accomplish different things, they all work towards one common goal: to prioritize our interns’ development and wellness. Here at RingCentral, we aren’t just looking for interns to do a job for us; we want to leave our interns with a lasting impact that accelerates their careers and lives, wherever they may take them.
Originally published Aug 08, 2023
