How Do I Get Students to Work, and How Do I Know if Things are Going Well? | Somehow I Manage
By Britt Yenser
This article is about encouragement and feedback. If you want to learn more about building a program, recruiting students, reflection, and documentation, check out prior articles and stay tuned for more!
Hello again, student employee managers! I hope this article finds you well and excited to start the new academic year. As you prepare to start over again in the Fall, have you thought about ways to encourage your student employees and to give and receive feedback? If you haven’t, or you aren’t sure where to start– you’ve come to the right place. Let’s go on this journey together…
How to Encourage Students to Work
- Pay them. This seems obvious, but it’s a major motivator. At my institution, we are actually able to pay students with not just work-study dollars, but departmental funds as well. This allows us to raise their wage and encourages students to work on campus. If this is an available option to you, it does make a difference.
- Remember that this is a part of their educational experience. Allow students to fail, or fall, forward. Mistakes happen. What happens afterward? Hopefully, learning happens! In order to really help students learn from their mistakes, make sure you have constant conversations about what you both consider a win and a miss.
- Offer a flexible schedule. I put all available shifts in Google Calendar, and students are expected to pick their own shifts. This not only ensures students get the amount of work they need and want, but it takes some scheduling pressure off of me. The more students feel they have ownership of their schedule, the more likely they will sign up to work.
- Play to students’ strengths. Do you have students returning to staff who are knowledgeable and motivated? Deputize them. Have them help mentor and train other students. They will be motivated by these leadership duties! They get valuable leadership skills, and you get to spread out some of the workload.
How to Provide and Receive Feedback
- Meet regularly. If you have a larger staff, you might need to strategically split up meetings or even have other team members host meetings. On my staff, we have weekly team meetings where we discuss our Quality Standards and our workload for the week– we use this time to make sure everyone is on the same page. We also have monthly 1:1 meetings with each student, where we talk about their college experience, their work, and address anything they might need help with. While no one likes to add meetings to their calendar, meeting with your students is well worth the time. It grounds them in their job and helps you to help them.
- Provide Surveys. If you make surveys a regular part of your communication, you’ll receive valuable feedback and data. Our staff receives 3 question surveys weekly in order to learn how events went that week and to compare that feedback to end-client feedback. If any feedback does not align, it tells us what conversation we need to have in an upcoming meeting. Students also receive a mid-semester survey and an end-of-year survey, so they have the opportunity to really let us know about their experiences and their perceptions of our department. If we learn something isn’t working, we adjust.
- Have a means of communication that works for the students. My staff and I use an app called BAND. It is designed for students and teachers, so it has a lot of valuable safety features baked in. We use BAND as our primary means of communication, putting all online communication in one place. This means we know exactly where to find information, and it’s easy for us all to be on the same page.
- Make the main thing the main thing. I learned that phrase from Ryan Gray, and it holds up in just about any situation. No matter what type of feedback you are giving or receiving, focus on the heart of it. Don’t “beat around the bush,” and don’t be afraid to have difficult conversations. Your team will never be successful if you do not have clear and concise communication.
Every staff is different, from staff size to management style. But if you can work on some strategic motivation and feedback, you just might see your team start to thrive! At the end of the day, no one wants to work for a manager who doesn’t seem to care about their employees. So, show your students you care with encouragement and continuous feedback.
