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Feasibility of Implementing an Intern Training Program

Benjamin Brantley-Brandon

ENG 3050

Amy Latawiec

Prepared for: The Higher Management of Peter Basso Associates Inc.

Submitted April 17, 2016

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Benjamin Brantley-Brandon36251 Grand River AveFarmington Hills, MI 48335April 2, 2016

Peter Basso Associates Inc.5145 Livernois Rd #100Troy, MI 48098

Dear Peter Basso and Higher level Management:

This document contains a report discussing the feasibility of creating and implementing a formal training program for Interns hired at Peter Basso Associates Inc. This report follows an earlier proposal memo sent March 6th, 2016 which quickly covers reasons incorporate such a training program for new Interns.

I suggest incorporating a training program for new interns of Peter Basso Associates Inc. on the following criteria.

● Gives experience and understanding faster● Creates an intern that is well rounded rather than just specialized in a couple of skills● Increased Retention of Interns

The research gathered clearly shows not all interns at the company are receiving experience in

areas of expertise that the managers at the company would like the interns to know. The

information gathered also shows an employee who feels a sense of usefulness and has the ability

to contribute in the work place tends to stay with a company longer. It can be inferred that an

Intern only can be useful if an intern has the experience and skills needed to so.

Thank you for your time. If you have any further questions, contact myself at 248-943-9188 or fx0478@wayne.edu

Sincerely,

Benjamin Brantley-Brandon

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Table of Contents

Letter of Transmittal...........................................................................................................2Introduction….…………………………………………………………………………....4Background….……………………………………………………………………………5Proposal…….………………………………………………………………………….....6Criteria……….………...…………………………………………………………………7Research Methods………………………………………………………………………..9Results…………………..………………………………………………………………11Conclusion and Recommendation……..………………………………………………..13Works Cited……………………..………………………………………………………14Appendix…………………………..……………………………………………………15

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Introduction

The main purpose of this document is to persuade Peter Basso Associates to implement an

Intern Training program. All new interns at the company have zero experience in their specific

industry of work. This program’s main goal is to increase the ability of all new interns to specific

benchmark within 3 months’ time from their date of hire. Currently at Peter Basso Associates

there is no such program or uniform plan of work for new interns to aspire to. The only way for

an intern to currently gaining experience is helping whoever needs help and feels they have the

time to explain how to help. The three main ways this type of training falls short is the following.

There is large portion of funds by not fully utilizing the 16 interns they currently have. The level of knowledge and intern obtains is solely dependent on the engineer they are

working with. Only some interns have an engineer to consistently work with. Over time this creates a

basic skill gap among all the interns since there is no benchmark.

Addressing this problem will have numerous benefits. The benefits with the largest impact are

the following.

There will be an increase in profit on the different projects Peter Basso Associates will complete in the future.

Interns will have an independent ability to add value to the team which will increase their sense of usefulness and purpose within the company. In turn this will create a hire retention rate of interns.

Lastly since Peter Basso Associates solely depends on their currently interns for their pool of future employment it only makes sense to increase the intern’s ability to perform to the highest degree possible.

Background

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Peter Basso Associates is the largest MEP consulting company in Michigan. MEP is

Mechanical, Electrical, and Plumbing. The industry can be thought of as HVAC (Heating,

Ventilation, & Air Conditioning). This company engineers and calculates the design that keeps a

facility at the point where it can inhabit a typical number of occupants year round. The company

has several groups that works on a specific type of facility. Then each group then has a few

engineers that specialized on mechanical, electrical, and plumbing respectively. Then interns

from the mechanical and electrical engineering background is are placed into these groups to

help and learn more about the industry. There is a large disconnect between schooling and this

industry because typically Mechanical and Electrical engineering programs in Michigan are

centered toward the automotive industry. Only one university in Michigan is accredited in

Architectural Engineering which is the industry Peter Basso Associates is in. And only a hand

full of Universities across the country are accredited in Architectural Engineering.

Proposal

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After consulting with all the managers we’ve come to the conclusion that there are 11 skills and

tasks an individual’s needs to have the ability to work independently. They are the following.

1. Duct Pressure Lost Calculation*2. Pipe Pressure Lost Calculation*3. Building Load Calculation*4. Duct Layout Design*5. Scheduling*6. Diffuser Sizing7. Grille Sizing8. Air Duct Sizing9. Pipe Sizing10. Terminal Unit Sizing11. Air Handling Unit Sizing

The first five abilities need to be developed to a point of independence by interns within the first two

months from the date of hire as they are the foundation to learn the remaining skills. The remaining

abilities need to be developed to a point of independence within the first three months from the date of

hire.

Also after consulting with all the managers we’ve come to the conclusion that there five programs

and resources an individual needs to know how to use to work independently. They are the following.

Concurrently while developing the 11 skills new interns need to understand how to use these

five programs and resources within the first three months from the date of hire. With discussion among

Peter Basso Associates managers we’ve come to the conclusion that it is the respective groups

responsibly to insure their interns have learned all of the above by the deadlines.

1. AutoCad2. Revit3. Pressure Loss Calc Forms4. ASHRAE Guidelines5. How to Look up

Symbols/Abbreviations

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Criteria

As Mentioned there are numerous reasons to implement this proposal but this

feasibility report narrows it down to three main points.

The first is the cost benefit to the company. Personally I’ve consistently seen many

Interns have nothing to do throughout the work day. It’s not that they aren’t motived it’s just that their

group hasn’t felt the need to teach and include them in projects. The research conducted in the following

section justifies this. In this scenario there are full-time engineering employees solely working on the

projects of the group while paying interns regardless of their impact. I’ve also seen interns in some groups

consistently incorporated in projects and are at a point where they can work and complete tasks

independently. This suggests that these interns have the skills to do so. In this scenario there are

Engineering Employees working on a portion of the projects and then Interns that are paid a significantly

less rate independently working on projects for their respective groups. This is where the cost benefit to

the proposal comes in. In this second scenario groups in Peter Basso Associates that have interns that

have the skills and ability to work on projects independently decreases the cost of overhead to complete

projects. This increase the profit these groups make in each project.

The second reason to implement the proposal is to increase the retention of interns

and employees. In the article Employee training and development by Efoli Ekot. She says one reason for

properly training employees is to reduce turnover. In other words to reduce the amount of employees that

leave a company. This make sense because when a worker adds value to the greater team they would feel

a sense of accomplishment and belonging. The reason to keep employees from leaving is that there is a

cost of up to 1.5-2X annual salary of the average employee to replace them. This figure comes from the

article Employee Retention Now a Big Issue by Josh Bersin who is the founder of the company Bersin by

Deloitte. The only way for an intern to add value to the greater team is the have the skills to do so. The

primary research conducting clearly shows that an intern is not being taught the skills to make

contributions.

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The last reason for the proposal is since Peter Basso Associates depends heavily on

their current interns to apply to full-time employment with the company in the future, it only makes sense

to train interns to the point of independence. If the interns aren’t, by obvious conclusion the future of the

company doesn’t look too bright. It was said by my hiring manager Kelly Sugg, “Over 90% percent of

new full-time hires were previous interns simply because this nature of work typically isn’t taught during

a mechanical engineering degree. Which is why I try to make time to teach interns thoroughly. A lot of

other teams don’t do the same for their interns which is will probably become a large problem in the

future.”

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Research Methods

To gather the primary research that was used in this feasibility report I met with all 11

Managers at Peter Basso Associates. This was done over a three week period I’ve personally

interview all of these managers to narrow down all skills, programs, and resources an employee

of this company needs to know how use to work independently. The list of the manager’s

interviewed are as follows.

1. Kelly Sugg2. Dennis Sczomak3. Wayne Kerbelis4. Scott Garrison5. Aravind Rao6. Karan Varma 7. Scott Gibbs8. Avin Castilleno9. Victoria Anderson10. Amy Gora11. Randy Wisniewski

The Interview stuck to the main topic of narrowing down of all the things an employee could

know which ones make an employee independent. This was narrowed down to the following.

The top five being the most valued.

Duct Pressure Lost Calculation* Pipe Pressure Lost Calculation* Building Load Calculation* Duct Layout Design* Scheduling* Diffuser Sizing Grille Sizing Air Duct Sizing Pipe Sizing Terminal Unit Sizing Air Handling Unit Sizing

AutoCad Revit Pressure Loss Calc Forms ASHRAE Guidelines How to Look up

Symbols/Abbreviations

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Next I conducted a survey of all 16 Interns. (The interns name will not be mentioned but

will be listed by number in results). The survey simply used the list gathered from the previous

set of interviews and asked if the intern knew how to use the skill program or resource. It also the

intern how long they have been with the company. The results are in the next section of the

report.

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Results and Analyzation

*One of the most crucial skills.(Yellow Square indicates that the Intern has that skills)

Intern #1 is the newest to Peter Basso Associates and Intern #16 has been with company the longest. This table points out only two of the Interns have all the skills. It would be good to note those two interns are part of the same group. This suggest that an intern’s ability to acquire is heavily dependent on a group’s willingness to incorporate an intern into activities. This table shows most interns simply don’t have the ability to work independently

(Yellow Square indicates that the Intern knows to use that program or resource)

Like the first graph Intern #1 is the newest to Peter Basso Associates and Intern #16 has been with company the longest. This table also shows most interns simply don’t have the ability to work independently. Another observation is that not all Interns are being taught AutoCad and Revit which are the two main programs used for drafting 3D models of facilities. This is a problem because if an intern they may be put into another group that uses a different program for their 3D modeling. In turn this just adds more time to until an intern is able to contribute independently to the group’s respective projects.

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This graphs simply shows the interns shows how long the intern has been with the company and how many of the five top skills they have. Those skills are once again.

Duct Pressure Lost Calculation* Pipe Pressure Lost Calculation* Building Load Calculation* Duct Layout Design* Scheduling*

It is clearly seen that there is no correlation between time with the company and ability to work independently.

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Conclusion and Recommendation

It can be concluded that Peter Basso Associates as a whole is not utilizing their interns to

the fullest potential. All data gathered shows there is a huge experience gap between interns as

most don’t have the ability to work independently. This Proposal will solve this problem and will

ensure Interns after a certain period of time will be at a certain benchmark not matter which

group they are put in. Having an Intern training program will create more profit for the company,

will increase the retention rate of interns and employees alike, and most importantly it will

secures the success of the company in the long-term as Peter Basso Associates will have more.

The proposal can be implemented immediately and there would be no cost to the company.

Lastly I’m at a point where I’ve been able to work a lot more independently but I can look back

and see many ways were I could have gotten to this point sooner. I’ve also seen fellow interns

that have been at the company longer and still haven’t been taught basics skills. No matter what

there will always be a learning curve but the point of the proposal is to shorten that learning

curve.

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Work Cited

Ekot, E. (2010, February 1). Employee Training and Development: Reasons and Benefits. Retrieved April 1, 2016, from http://www.legalsecretaryjournal.com/?q=employee_training_and_development

Bersin, J. (2013, August 16). Employee Retention Now a Big Issue: Why the Tide has Turned. Retrieved April 1, 2016, from https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20130816200159-131079-employee-retention-now-a-big-issue-why-the-tide-has-turned

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Appendix