Please read the following case study:

As a manager at Marketing Plus, a small Los Angeles-based public relations and marketing firm, you think your company should be offering internships. With all the colleges in the Los Angeles area, you would have a wide audience for an internship program. In addition, your company could use the extra help and perhaps even the creativity of about-to-graduate college students.

You recently read about Nickerson PME, a 10-person Boston area marketing and public relations firm. Owner Lisa Nickerson offers a year-round internship program. She calls participants “associates” to make them feel less like “lowly interns” and more like members of the staff. Her interns receive course credit and work experience but do not earn a paycheck. Instead Nickerson teaches them to perform tasks like preparing press releases and promoting them to clients. The arrangement results in valuable help around the office without draining the budget. Nickerson says, “If you take the time to put together a good program, you don’t have to pay the student. An abundance of students want that type of hands-on client experience.”

You believe that Los Angeles college students would be eager to gain experience at a real company and fill in their résumés with solid work experience. The problem is that your boss resists internship programs because he has heard that interns are really employees who must be paid. He told you in a recent conversation that he is unsure of the fine line that separates employees from interns and he doesn’t want to violate any labor laws.

Case Assignment

Write a persuasive email message to Dick Elders founder and CEO of Marketing Plus. Explain how interns are different from employees. Use the Internet to research the topic and learn what six requirements help the government determine whether an intern is an employee who should be paid. Use persuasive strategies you have studied, but stay focused on the conviction that interns do not have to be paid as employees. You are on a first-name basis with Dick.

Assignment Expectations

Write a persuasive memo.

Write a summary explaining why you used the principles you used in writing your memo. Your explanation should make use of the Background Info, properly cited and referenced.