Industry body for the creative agency sector, Never Not Creative, has launched Internship Minimum Standards, a set of guidelines for creative agencies and businesses to give emerging talent the best possible start in the industry.

At the end of 2019, Never Not Creative formed a change group of creative professionals and educators passionate about improving the state of internships across the industry. The main issues that the change group chose to address were the:

• Nonpayment of interns
• Lack of structured internship programs
• Exploitation of interns by ‘busy’ employers
• Better education of interns and employers on how to make the most of an internship opportunity.

All of the above issues were found to be regular occurrences. While interns themselves don’t recognise an immediate issue in not being paid (69% of interns surveyed by Never Not Creative said they would intern for free), they’ll do anything to get a foot in the door.

However, the long-term effects of this practice such as elitism and the devaluing of creative work were "too important to ignore", the group stated.

In response, the first initiative to launch is the Internships Minimum Standards.

The standards are accompanied by a program template (in beta) and resources for employers and interns on how to run and fund an ethical internship program.

Key components of the Standards include:

• A recommended hourly rate of $23/hr plus super, (the Award rate is $19.49/hr).
• A safe and healthy workplace
• A minimum duration of 20 days and a maximum duration of 72 days (to ensure the internship is valuable, and not exploitative)
• The signing of a contract that states the mutual commitments and responsibilities of each party (all your employees and interns should have a contract)

The Standards can be signed by any business. Signees will be publicly visible on the NeverNotCreative.Org website.

As more and more businesses sign, interns will be able to use the list of companies as a way to check and find companies to approach for internships in the future.

Founding signees include, ustwo, Portable, The Edison Agency, and they have been endorsed by AGDA and Youngbloods. Never Not Creative are also working with universities to encourage their partners to adopt the Standards.

Andy Wright, Creator of Never Not Creative said, “We’ve been ignoring the issue of unpaid and unstructured internships for far too long. It’s become commonplace. I think many of us have heard the phrase… we’re busy let’s get an intern in…. as a way of trying to manage sporadic workload. This situation isn’t good for the intern, and it’s certainly not a sustainable strategy for running a successful business.”