Setting Higher Standards: Student Worker Contracts, Evaluations and Training

Abstract

Student workers are largely acknowledged as the backbone of Access Services. Without them, our services would be much more limited. But what happens when you suddenly find yourself with a staff of students who have no buy-in? , After a major staff change, our student workers were left with uneven training, little understanding of expectations and not feeling like their job was meaningful. In order to combat the growing apathy among our staff, we decided to apply the idea of students will rise to the expectations set for them. The problem was, our expectations were very unclear and often seemed contradictory., We designed contracts, one for all student workers and a separate, more involved one, for our higher tier Senior Students. We developed a detailed rubric for an evaluation that matched our contracts. We held one on one meetings with all of our students throughout the semester. We set up a new way for them to praise each other and to report concerns timely and directly to supervisors. In one semester, we went from a staff of warm bodies to a staff more actively invested in their work. When we set clear expectations, they rose to meet and exceed them.