BUT ARE THEIR COMPETITORS AS WELL-BEHAVED?
The British advertising agency Bartle Bogle Hegarty (BBH) has become the first Pay Your Interns target to tell Graduate Fog that the company pays its interns the National Minimum Wage (£5.93 an hour, rising to £6.08 from 1 October).
When we emailed BBH’s press office to ask about their policy on internships, BBH’s spokesperson told us:
“We do indeed have interns at BBH, under three different schemes. The first scheme is a weekly work experience, for on average two people each week, who are 18 years and over. The individuals will get to meet key people around the agency in order to find out more about the communications business and roles within it. As this type of scheme is more about individuals finding out about and shadowing people from the agency, we pay £50 towards their weekly travel and lunch. Anyone interested in this scheme can email oneweek@bbh.co.uk to find out more.
“The other two schemes we run and pay participants the National Miniumum Wage, are called “The Barn”, which is specifically for creative teams and “Home Grown.” The Barn intern programme runs for a three month period (we have four placement slots throughout the year) and The Home Grown programme can run for between two weeks to three months.
“These schemes are a great way to give people the opportunity to learn more about our business and for us to attract, nurture and inspire new talent. The Barn and Home Grown scheme had 28 interns in 2010, 9 are now permanent employees and so far this year we have had 27 interns, 2 of which are now permanent. For further information on the Home Grown Scheme please go to www.bbhhomegrown.co.uk.”
The advertising industry has a bad reputation for using unpaid interns – so Graduate Fog is encouraged to hear that one of the country’s biggest agencies does not. BBH joins fellow ad agency Mother, which told Graduate Fog recently that it pays all its interns at least the London Living Wage (£8.20 an hour) – as well as providing free meals at their in-house canteen.
But what about their rival agencies, Ogilvy, AMV and McCann Erickson? Are they treating their young staff equally well? Graduate Fog has emailed them – but no response has arrived as yet. We will keep you posted…
*Have you worked for BBH as an unpaid intern?
We have no reason to think they are fibbing – but if you know something we don’t, please get in touch and we’ll go back to them. If you have interned unpaid for any other big ad agency, we’d love to hear from you (100% anonymity guaranteed).
Which other companies are we targeting in our Pay Your Interns campaign? Click here
Hooray for BBH – what a great example to others!
Some companies (eg BBH) do right by their interns because it’s the right thing to do. Others don’t because they think they’ll get away with it. Those in the second group should read the extract below from today’s article in the People Bulletin.
“This misunderstanding [that unpaid interns can’t be employees]among employers can LEAVE THEM EXPOSED TO CLAIMS FOR BACK-DATED PAY FOR UP TO SIX YEARS from both current and former interns. Employers may also be liable for paid holiday and rest breaks. Many unions are actively encouraging unpaid interns to seek legal support; the NATIONAL UNION OF JOURNALISTS HAS A WEB LINK on their homepage which advises interns on HOW TO BRING A CLAIM FOR UNPAID WAGES.”
Even though unpaid interns may not be prepared to mount a legal challenge now, they may well feel differently 5 years down the line!
They might pay their ‘interns’ NMW, but those interns have probably had a bucket load of unpaid ‘experience’ behind them from other ad agencies.
I’d like to add that I did one week’s worth of ‘work experience’ with them.
They knew I was an undergrad travelling from outside of London who desperately wanted to be in creative industries, and seemed to be pleased I had specialist design skills. However, I was paid only £50 stipend, and this did not cover my travelling/subsistence costs, meaning I had a loss of at least £70 that week.
The work epxerience took place in the ‘production’ department. ‘Production’ implies producing projects, such as strategising them, or putting together the right people and the correct resources together in order to complete an advertisement or other media project. However, I didn’t get to touch any of these things, or even shadow them (when I asked to do so, I was rudely refused not by the creatives, but by the person ‘in charge’ of me).
At the time, I naively thought I had to make the sacrifice to learn something because my university was teaching me nothing. However, I was merely given menial tasks, such as photocopying, picture research and running things over to different departments. While I appreciate that these menial tasks need doing, the people ‘in charge’ of me also did the same jobs, albeit they got paid.
In addition, everyone had pretentious attitudes, rude and very ‘up themselves’, including the people ‘in charge of me’, who were admittedly, in completely dead-end jobs (yet felt they had ‘achieved’ something amazing or were going places).
Thankfully, it was only a week. But after I had politely complained to an extremely senior member of staff and to the people who were ‘in charge of me’, the idiot had a look of horror on her face and asked me to leave early on the last day. At first I refused, wanting to finish what I had started, but after she asked a second time, I relented. After all, I had been left with literally nothing to do for the last 2 days.
I complained about the loss of expenses, but was told that I knew it was part of my ‘job’. No it wasn’t a job, it was pure, unadulterated slavish exploitation. A job implies actually getting paid and not losing a lot of money (£70 is a lot of money for a uni student, and I consider myself a very responsible spender!).
In short, Graduate Fog, please DON’T give BBH face! They are not good people, it’s another evil, exploitative corporation. I beg you to please correct this article and the one on Pay Your Interns. Thanks again for all your good work.
They might pay their ‘interns’ NMW, but those interns have probably had a bucket load of unpaid ‘experience’ behind them from other ad agencies.
I’d like to add that I did one week’s worth of ‘work experience’ with them.
They knew I was an undergrad travelling from outside of London who desperately wanted to be in creative industries, and seemed to be pleased I had specialist design skills. However, I was paid only £50 stipend, and this did not cover my travelling/subsistence costs, meaning I had a loss of at least £70 that week.
The work epxerience took place in the ‘production’ department. ‘Production’ implies producing projects, such as strategising them, or putting together the right people and the correct resources together in order to complete an advertisement or other media project. However, I didn’t get to touch any of these things, or even shadow them (when I asked to do so, I was rudely refused not by the creatives, but by the person ‘in charge’ of me).
At the time, I naively thought I had to make the sacrifice to learn something because my university was teaching me nothing. However, I was merely given menial tasks, such as photocopying, picture research and running things over to different departments. While I appreciate that these menial tasks need doing, the people ‘in charge’ of me also did the same jobs, albeit they got paid.
In addition, everyone had pretentious attitudes, rude and very ‘up themselves’, including the people ‘in charge of me’, who were admittedly, in completely dead-end jobs (yet felt they had ‘achieved’ something amazing or were going places).
Thankfully, it was only a week. But after I had politely complained to an extremely senior member of staff and to the people who were ‘in charge of me’, the person ‘in charge’ had a look of horror on her face and asked me to leave early on the last day. At first I refused, wanting to finish what I had started, but after she asked a second time, I relented. After all, I had been left with literally nothing to do for the last 2 days.
I complained about the loss of expenses, but was told that I knew it was part of my ‘job’. No it wasn’t a job, it was pure, unadulterated slavish exploitation. A job implies actually getting paid and not losing a lot of money (£70 is a lot of money for a uni student, and I consider myself a very responsible spender!).
In short, Graduate Fog, please DON’T give BBH face! They are not good people, it’s another evil, exploitative corporation. I beg you to please correct this article and the one on Pay Your Interns. Thanks again for all your good work.