Like all of agribusiness , the nursery industry struggles to detect enough working class to get the job done . Not only is it difficult to find employee to wreak on organ transplant lines and in merchant marine , but it is also challenging to find new employees to move through the ranks to become the future leaders of the company . According to Greenhouse Grower ’s State of the Industry composition , most glasshouse operation owners are over age 55 ( 65 % ) . Some nursery proprietor are preparing succession plans for their baby , while others are pose their businesses up for sale or selling to real estate firm where the solid ground is highly valuable . Particularly within the last year , I have seen many shake - ups in glasshouse businesses in west Michigan . How can you , as a business owner or manager , prepare yourself for the future ? How do you insure that there ’s a pipeline of novel talent and mania coming into the business ? internship ! Yes , hosting interns can be a time - consume effort , but hopefully , you’re able to recruit a promising , impudent person into the industriousness and peradventure even your patronage .
Internships are excellent opportunities for educatee to experience different employment environments , learn new skills , and put their classroom learning to real - world use . Most college students appear for summertime internships that link to their field of study ; this permit them to build their resumes or pursue further training . internship are also exceedingly formative for life history exploration . The greenhouse and nursery industriousness bring home the bacon internship opportunities for students , particularly at large companies that have yr around production and sales . Businesses interested in starting internship programs should first consider how they can supply an excellent experience for a student intern .
How can you put up a student with an excellent internship at your company?The key to an splendid internship is to allow for students with a variety of experience . Some greenhouses and nurseries grow special labor such as trialing new cultivars of industrial plant or perform in - menage trials of unlike growing practices ( e.g. , biocontrol , plant growth regulator ) . Internships should allow them to cycle through dissimilar product areas or job theatrical role . For example , a student operate under section grower growing plug or finish plants for a few weeks and then moves on to harvest reconnoiter for another few weeks . All jobs have un - glamourous tasks , such as weeding a landscape painting bed or perform sanitation tasks .
Hopefully , if you mix educational experience with insistent tasks , the interne will still consider it a positive experience . Students in green industry businesses should also be exposed to non - plant - oriented aspect such as merchandising , logistics , transportation , and marketing .
The kind of experience should not only embrace the project at the greenhouse , but internship programs should include some playfulness experiences too . For model , some internships include drop dead to found test gardens , a internal show ( such as Cultivate ) , or a local botanic garden . Other ideas admit nights in the garden ( employee taste ) , pizza pie night , or an ice cream social . If you have interns that are not from the local field , take them to local sites for one Clarence Shepard Day Jr. ( beach day , anyone ? ) . Make it your excuse to socialize with your colleague too . These fun share experience build up community and improve team spirit on the team .
Source : canr.msu.edu
