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Supervisors of Student Employees

Thank you for welcoming a student employee into your department at Sac State! For many student employees, this is their first job and your role in their career will always be important. Your responsibility for your student employee goes beyond initial recruitment and keeping track of hours worked. You are training our student employees to be future Sac State employees that you’d love to hire! Here are some tips and tools for you to successfully hire, onboard, supervise, engage, develop, and recognize your student employees.

Recruit

There are several different types of student employees on campus. The recruitment and hiring processes are different depending on which type of employment your department offers.

Student Assistants

Step One: Request funding through your department.

Step Two: Recruit through the Career Center.

Step Three: Hire through Human Resources Employment Services.

You have an important role to play in ensuring we are building a workplace of inclusion and belonging. It is important to embed equitable hiring practices during the student employee recruitment process, including:

  • Attend all relevant trainings on how to recruit applicants, and which systems and processes to use.
  • Staff responsible for hiring are encouraged to complete module three of Inclusive Practices in the Search Process. You may also work with the pros at the Career Center and Student Employment to ensure your posting and interview questions are equity-focused, including the following best practices: Use universal plain language and avoid acronyms.
    • Use people-first language
    • Use gender-neutral language
    • Avoid phrases with biased origins
  • Craft interview questions that allow for the interview to be an engaging and developmental experience for students.
  • When scheduling interviews, offer reasonable accommodations by communicating the following: "It is the policy of California State University, Sacramento, to provide reasonable accommodations for persons with disabilities who are applicants for employment. If you need accommodations for your interview, please contact the Benefits Office by e-mail at benefits@csus.edu, by telephone at (916) 278-6213."

Federal Work Study Student Assistants

Step One: Request funding through Financial Aid.

Step Two: Recruit through the Career Center.

Step Three: Hire through Human Resources Employment Services.

LAEP Student Employees (a type of Federal Work Study Student Assistant)

The Learning-Aligned Employment Program (LAEP) is a type of Federal Work Study. All on-campus LAEP positions include a minimum of 75% research in the position description.

Step One: Complete the LAEP Employer Interest Form.

Step Two: Recruit through the Career Center.

Step Three: Hire through Human Resources Employment Services.

You have an important role to play in ensuring we are building a workplace of inclusion and belonging. It is important to embed equitable hiring practices during the student employee recruitment process, including:

  • Attend all relevant trainings on how to recruit applicants, and which systems and processes to use.
  • Staff responsible for hiring are encouraged to complete module three of Inclusive Practices in the Search Process. You may also work with the pros at the Career Center and Student Employment to ensure your posting and interview questions are equity-focused, including the following best practices: Use universal plain language and avoid acronyms.
    • Use people-first language
    • Use gender-neutral language
    • Avoid phrases with biased origins
  • Craft interview questions that allow for the interview to be an engaging and developmental experience for students.
  • When scheduling interviews, offer reasonable accommodations by communicating the following: "It is the policy of California State University, Sacramento, to provide reasonable accommodations for persons with disabilities who are applicants for employment. If you need accommodations for your interview, please contact the Benefits Office by e-mail at benefits@csus.edu, by telephone at (916) 278-6213."

Academic Student Employees

Academic Student Employees (Bargaining Unit 11) include Instructional Student Assistants (ISA), Graduate Assistants (GA), and Teaching Associates (TA).

Step One: Request funding through your department.

Step Two: Recruit through the Office of Graduate Studies.

Step Three: Hire through Human Resources Employment Services.

You have an important role to play in ensuring we are building a workplace of inclusion and belonging. It is important to embed equitable hiring practices during the student employee recruitment process, including:

  • Attend all relevant trainings on how to recruit applicants, and which systems and processes to use.
  • Staff responsible for hiring are encouraged to complete module three of Inclusive Practices in the Search Process. You may also work with the pros at the Career Center and Student Employment to ensure your posting and interview questions are equity-focused, including the following best practices: Use universal plain language and avoid acronyms.
    • Use people-first language
    • Use gender-neutral language
    • Avoid phrases with biased origins
  • Craft interview questions that allow for the interview to be an engaging and developmental experience for students.
  • When scheduling interviews, offer reasonable accommodations by communicating the following: "It is the policy of California State University, Sacramento, to provide reasonable accommodations for persons with disabilities who are applicants for employment. If you need accommodations for your interview, please contact the Benefits Office by e-mail at benefits@csus.edu, by telephone at (916) 278-6213."

Hire

Hiring involves many key steps that must be followed diligently. It is of utmost importance that departments do not work an employee until receiving official, written confirmation from Student Employment that they are cleared and approved to work.

  1. Complete the appropriate hiring process for the type of student employee you're hiring. (Reference table above.)
  2. Once you've notified a student that they have been selected for the position, they must go to Student Employment (Del Norte Hall 3009) to complete hiring paperwork.
  3. An Employment Confirmation Notice will be sent via email to the student employee, hiring manager, and the online Student Employee Personnel Transaction Form (SEPTF) preparer.
  4. The student cannot begin working until the department has received this official written notice.
  5. After the notice has been received with an effective start date, you may begin communicating with them to schedule their work.

Onboard

The onboarding process is about making your student employee feel welcome in your unit and that they belong at Sac State.

Provide your student employee(s) with a welcoming first day!

This includes scheduling time dedicated to meet and review the following information, tour the work space, and provide introductions to the team and other personnel.

Discuss the work schedule, including when breaks and lunch breaks should be taken and for how long.

Explain procedures for how to notify the department when they are late, sick, or have other absences, and how to request a change in the work schedule.

Review your department schedule so student employees knows who is working when, in addition to the campus holiday schedule as it applies to department closures.

Share your expectations of working in a professional environment. This could include dress attire appropriate for the job, preferences about cell phone use and doing homework during their shift, and information about office standards.

Take time to outline and review how they should address an instance of bias, harassment, or unwelcome behavior in the work environment.

Student employees -- with very few exceptions -- should not be assigned responsibilities in the case of an emergency. Please ensure student employees know that their primary role during any emergency is to follow guidance from you and department personnel.

Please review with your student employee(s) your department procedures on where and how to shelter-in-place. Guide them through the specific steps on how to exit their work space and gather at the appropriate location in case of an emergency evacuation. Identify where your department's first aid kit and emergency supplies are kept.

Please ask them to complete the Emergency Contact Form to be used for communication in case of an emergency, and then keep that information in a confidential location.

All employees of Sacramento State -- including student employees -- are required to complete mandatory trainings to remain in compliance with federal and/or state law and CSU policy.

It typically takes three to five days after a student employee's official start date for the series of standard compliance trainings to be assigned. These trainings are automatically assigned and accessed through CSU Learn. Please note that if a student employee has worked on campus before and is being rehired through your department, their compliance training assignments will not be re-assigned as if they were a brand new hire.

Schedule time for your student employee to complete these trainings while on the job. Check out the CSU Learn Compliance Training Tips to review information about the courses, as well as a useful email template you can tailor and send to your student employee(s) informing them of this requirement.

The series of trainings takes approximately five hours to complete. Time spent in compliance training is paid as hours worked, and should be completed on-site.

Student employees should generally not use their personal Sac Link email account to conduct business for your department. Please request that a generic positional email account be created for your department's student employee(s) to use for department correspondence.

If your student employee will be accessing PeopleSoft (Common Management Systems Student Access, Human Resources, or Financial Systems), please work with your department's designated CARS requester to provision them into these systems.

It is also recommended that you consult with IRT regarding all computer and software access that your student employee(s) will need. They will work with you to provision access to shared network drives and folders, department Outlook calendars, and other software as necessary for their duties.

It is your role to train your student employee on how to use department computer equipment and software programs. IRT's Software and Tools Catalog also provides on-demand training for a variety of software programs such as Microsoft 365 (Outlook, Excel, OneNote, PowerPoint, Word) and Adobe.

An important part of the training you provide your student employee(s) includes how they are expected to report and submit their hours worked online. Hours worked must be reported at the end of each shift.

Your role is to track those hours and ensure that the appropriate department personnel are approving your student employee's online time reporting.

Supervise

The role of the supervisor is to create a safe, productive, trusting, and motivating work environment, where people take responsibility for their jobs and themselves, they develop their critical thinking skills, and you lead by example. Your responsibilities as a supervisor of a student employee include training, communicating performance standards, setting behavioral expectations, and delivering feedback.

Managing Student Employees

Managing Student Employees is a popular webcast that helps you prepare students to be successful employees in your department. Techniques are shared for proactive supervision by setting expectations, explaining the requirements of university employment, documenting schedules, coordinating workload, managing performance, and connecting students to important campus resources.

Managing Student Employees Webcast

Resources to manage students:

Sample evaluation tool for evaluating student employee performance -- not to be used with Unit 11 Academic Student Employees (Instructional Student Assistants, Graduate Assistants, and Teaching Assistants):

Compliance Training

To help you as a supervisor stay on the right track with compliance fundamentals and responsibilities, be sure to complete your mandatory supervisory training in CSU Learn.

Job Training

You are responsible for training your student employee in all aspects of the work you are expecting them to perform. A recommended best practice for training is to demonstrate a task three times, do it with the student employee three times, and then observe the task being completed and provide feedback.

Principles of Supervision

Principles of Supervision is a professional development program designed by the CSU Chancellor's Office to provide supervisors with the foundational knowledge and skills they need to effectively manage and lead others. At Sac State, Principles of Supervision is facilitated for two types of employees -- bargaining unit staff who provide lead work direction, and managers in the MPP classification. All supervisors of student employees are encouraged to complete this impactful and rewarding program.

LinkedIn Learning

LinkedIn Learning courses on coaching, management, and supervision skills are available 24/7 from any device. Add "management" or "supervision" as a skill in your profile, and let the platform recommend top quality content taught by subject matter experts to help you grow these skills. Diversity Across Generations: Supporting Workplace Inclusion is a helpful course for managing multiple generations.

Develop

The job you have hired your student employee(s) to perform is likely one of their first, and will be a foundation upon which they will grow their future career. Include them as a valued member of your team, and engage with them as a colleague. Provide them with consistent, strengths-based feedback to encourage their growth.

Support their professional development by encouraging that they take advantage of the many training resources available to them while a student.

Your student assistant is also a college student with their own set of challenges and life circumstances. Support their success in your department and also as a Sac State college student by ensuring they know about the many available university resources such as CARES and Student Health and Counseling.

The CSU Red Folder is on each university desktop. Familiarize yourself with the content, as it provides directions and resources for your role in identifying and assisting student employees in distress.

Recognize

Your student employee deserves recognition and appreciation as a team member! Don’t let this important part of the supervisory process fall through the cracks.

  • Acknowledge their support and hard work throughout the year.
  • During your check-ins, take time to appreciate their completed projects and give kudos for their hard work.
  • Work with them to develop a system to keep track of their accomplishments. This will benefit you both, and will also help them develop an important professional skill.

Show your appreciation in a way they prefer and in a way meaningful to them. Feel free to use or personalize this recognition form so they can share with you how they'd like to be acknowledged for their contributions.

Student Employee Recognition Preferences

And please consider highlighting their hard work during April, which is designated as Student Employee Appreciation Month.