NE BUSINESS BUREAU
MUMBAI, APRIL 18
When large global companies resorted to withdrawing job offers or suspending on-boarding of recruited employees, Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries Limted (RIL) went ahead and on-boarded 84 summer interns last week in a well-crafted online manoeuvre.The programme, called the ‘Virtual Reliance Summer Program’, is a thoughtful and detailed programme that not only enables interns to do their summer jobs online but also get the feel of working with an organisation, inculcate a sense of belonging and get full corporate work experience, a Reliance statement said.
“The 84 summer interns were recruited earlier this year from various management schools from across the country. They were relieved and pleasantly surprised to receive an email from the company asking them to join in April, as scheduled in the pre-Corona period. The interns were guided the appropriate online platforms to equip their devices with,” the statement added.
At its end, RIL prepared the detailed “Virtual Reliance Summer Program” for each of the interns. The programme started with a detailed onboarding module aimed at not only providing interns with the company and job orientation but also building team spirit through several tasteful ice-breaking and team-building sessions.
The Interns were inculcated into the company philosophy, culture and businesses through online sessions with leadership from key businesses as well as the heads of HR and Corporate Brand and Communications. Each Intern was assigned a ‘Buddy” – a senior alumnus from the same business team – to be a mentor and support, so essential in the initial days. Also, personal calls were arranged with business heads and HR partners to provide each intern with an adequate overview of the programme and relevant guidelines.
Creative and interesting engagement activities were next in line to ensure the ice was broken and teams were built.
Some ingenious activities included:
- Gesture Challenge: Wednesday, April 8 was the day of the pre-boarding session where the summer interns learnt to effectively use the online platforms. A light-hearted gesture challenge at the end of the session put all of them in the right positive frame of mind for their next few weeks at RIL.
- Twinning day: Monday, the April 13 was “twinning day” – interns got to plan twinning outfits with one colleague in the batch
- Props day: Tuesday, April 14 was ‘props day’ when our interns joined an interactive session with their alumni while wearing fun props
- Virtual Scavenger Hunt: Interns were divided into teams to play a ‘virtual scavenger hunt’ with a list of tasks to be completed. People got glimpses of each other’s daily life during WFH through this activity.
Sufficiently charged and excited about their internships, the summer interns have now plunged into their daily routines. The eight-week programme has been well adapted to the online environment with adequate protocols for access and data security and governance.
The programme itself has been revamped to be remote-friendly with charters shared with each intern and pre-defined weekly connects established. The programme has also incorporated gamified learning and engagement modules to make work and learning more interesting. Adequate governance through regular check-ins and surveys and working with assessment partners for online assessment and Pre Placement Offers have also been incorporated to make it a completely functional internship programme.
RIL teams feel satisfied they managed to create this comprehensive online internship programme in such a short time through sheer hard work and resolve. The initial relief at finding their internships was not withdrawn, and then the delight on the faces of the young interns as they started the programme, have been just rewarding.
