Campus IT organizations currently leverage student workers as lower-cost employees on low-risk projects around campus. However, if IT staff take steps to mitigate risk from student workers, they can engage them in more valuable projects that extend IT’s capacity for priority initiatives.
This executive brief—written for CIOs, service management directors, help desk managers, and IT managers—details strategies to engage student workers in tasks, keep them accountable and mitigate risks, and create roles for them beyond the help desk.
Screen and identify low-risk student workers with a track record of reliability
Student referrals are important to building a professional pipeline, as it allows your full-time staff to recommend and vouch for prospective employees’ trustworthiness. Use this resource to create a contact list of employees to recommend students and ensure you maintain a relationship with that student as he or she matriculates.
Hold student workers to same norms as full-time staff
Systematic evaluations for student employees give them a sense of ownership for their work and encourage them to provide high-quality service and limit institutional exposure to risk. Use this student employee evaluation toolbox to implement an evaluation procedure and integrate these tools into a regular schedule.
Organize high-value, long-term projects for student employees
Ownership for long-term IT projects give students the benefits of a traditional internship, while reducing workload on full-time employees. Use this resource to identify opportunities for semester- or year-long projects for student workers, as well as strategies to secure funding, collaborate with academic departments, and set expectations for applicants.
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