FCRE Internship Consultation

FCRE is considering launching an internship scheme, and is proposing asking

Members and internees to operate and manage an internet ‘forum’ in order to
keep FCRE members informed of their activity.

The purpose of this communication and Blog Site is to solicit comments from the
members of the FCRE and at the same time test your response to this way of
working.

The comments can be posted, and read by all. Please note that this test ‘forum’
is unprotected, i.e. can be accessed by anyone who locates the address. This
may be changed in the future.

The following notes provide a summary of the scheme.

SUITABLE CANDIDATES

The position would suit a person who has a demonstrable interest and
experience in, and ideally understanding of, corporate real estate or a non
cognate activity which could help develop the reach and presence of the
organisation. Suitable candidates will hold, or be pursuing, a relevant
postgraduate degrees or have relevant experience. The desired academic
background of the intern has yet to be specified, as this depends on the subject
and nature of the internship, but could be directly related to the property industry,
or perhaps indirectly related in subjects such as economics, political and social
sciences, architecture or engineering. Clearly this depends on the subject and
nature of the internship.

STRUCTURE AND ORGANISATION

There are two approaches to organising the scheme:

a) Internship

An 'internship', with the appointee working continuously in the chosen field,

based in one or other member’s’ offices, for a total of say 3 months continuous
engagement on a specific project.

b) Bursary

A 'bursary', with the appointee working on the chosen subject in their own time,
over an extended period of say 9 - 12 months.
As the scheme will be aligned with FCRE, and not with a specific FCRE member,
its structure and organisation will ideally reflect this. This could be achieved by
having mentors from different FCRE members, or/and a system of placements.
Another possibility is to utilise internet networking tools such as forums, blogs
and Facebook. For example blogs like this could be used by interns to tell the
rest of the federation about their activities, and by the rest of the Federation to
communicate with the interns.

TOPICS

The scheme will require guiding topics. Here are some ideas, subject to any
others you may have:

a) New Ways of Working;

The intern reviews the relationship between technological innovation, changes in

working and employment practices and patterns on the use and occupation of
property, productivity, and the corporate real estate occupier and the wider
business community.

b) Sustainability and Corporate Real Estate;

The intern reviews the implications of sustainable development and carbon

efficiency in relation to business and corporate real estate.

c) Public Affairs and Corporate Real Estate;

The intern reviews the agendas of relevant public affairs organisations, such as
government departments, think tanks, NGOs and academics as these bear upon
the interests of business and corporate real estate.

OBJECTIVES

It is necessary to establish clear aims and objectives for the intern.

Possibilities include:

writing a report and/or presentation for the rest of the Federation which can be
expanded to form the basis of future workshops, seminars and publications for
members and other stakeholders.

FINDING THE INTERNS

The way in which the internship scheme is publicised can be an important

element in FCRE publicity, and to its recruitment of new members. This also
applies to how internees are selected, as illustrated buy the following options:

a) Introduced by FCRE members

The candidate could be sourced from within FCRE itself – in effect a benefit
gained from membership.

b) Press ‘advertisement’

Applications could be invited by conventional appointments pages of relevant

journals. More interesting, however, it might be that this could be announced via
press releases or editorial articles in industry magazines like Estates Gazette and
Property Week or business journals such as Management Today. Indeed these
publications maybe interested in featuring the work of FCRE and the internees.

c) Academic institutions

FCRE could find its interns through relevant academic institutions, such as the
University of Reading's School of Real Estate and Planning, or Oxford Brookes
University's Department of Real Estate and Construction. Indeed the scheme
could align itself with one of these institutions.

The benefit of some of these more sophisticated approaches is that they would
provide FCRE, and its internship, with greater exposure, and hence potentially
generate greater Federation membership interest, and greater public
engagement.

FUNDING

It is possible for the internees to be unpaid. However it would provide greater

access and support if there was funding. In this case the question is how much
and where from.

One suggestion is that each internee is sponsored by three or four ‘mentors’,

who each make a financial contribution. A suitable target might be a total of
£3,000 for a three month internship.

We hope this inspires a constructive discussion via the blog or email and would
welcome your comments by 31 August on any of the points made!