We want to develop and design new products in collaboration with foreign interns

Q.Why did your company decide to take on interns? What did you aim to achieve?

Our main goals in taking in interns were to take in excellent human resources and instill an internationalization mindset within the company. Our company is located in Takeo City, Saga Prefecture. Because we are far from any highly populated urban areas and increasing our source population is not easy, we have always been enthusiastic in hiring anyone regardless of their background as long as they show promise. We do have foreign employees, but because they speak Japanese fluently, they tend to conform to the Japanese staff environment. However, this time we wanted to aim for a further level of internationalization among employees and within the organization by having our staff work together with foreign interns who could only speak English, interns who would be able to perform in our work environment regardless of their language barriers. Another goal was to try developing and designing new products. Our current staff team is so busy with daily tasks, they generally cannot dive into anything new. Therein, we decided to launch a new project together with our foreign interns and work on developing and designing a new product.

Communicating with our staff was a challenge. We bridged the communication gap by learning Japanese and English respectively.

Q.What kind of internship did you run? What difficulties did you face and how did you resolve them?

First we held an orientation and discussed the desires of the interns and the contents of the internship. In addition, I feel that we also deepened their understanding by continually discussing the activity content with interns while working together. We had them practice 3DCAD, and when they got used to using it, we involved them in model creation for our products. In addition to having them work with the project we had originally intended, they went above and beyond to report that they wanted to try working in other areas as well. They participated in website creation and an IoT related project as well. Their independence and ability to act were constantly amazing. However, because we only had 3 staff members who could speak English, I felt that communication with staff members other than the intern management posed a challenge. Therein, in order to create opportunities to converse with other staff members as well, we had Japanese lessons for the interns 3 times per week and English lessons for the staff members as well. We chipped away at the language barrier every day and resolved the communication barrier by working together.

Successfully constructed 3D model prototypes and a Singapore office website

Q.Comparing before and after the internship, what effects did it have on you, your employees, or your organization?

Regarding the new project, which was one of our goals, we were able to successfully create several 3D models. Also, we had the interns work on a Singapore office website, which turned out to be very satisfying as progress for the new project. And concerning the mindset of internationalization within our company, which was our most important goal, our staff members experienced a deepening of understanding towards foreign culture through a reduced resistance to speaking and listening to English. The interns also grew used to using Japanese and became gradually more and more familiar with Japanese people and culture. I feel that they grew to like our company and Japan immensely more than when they first came. Their performance was spectacular and I expect even greater things from them in the future. 2 of the interns who were foreign students specifically requested to come back to Japan after their internship concluded, and we have decided to hire them here. We want them to continue to contribute to our company's growth based on the experience they garnered while serving as interns.