This issue, Brittany Morriss, the senior assistant director of student employment and training at the Louisiana State University, shares advice on employee onboarding.
Briefly describe what training a new student staff member looks like at Louisiana State University (LSU) UREC.
BM: All our new hires go through a Pre-Employment Meeting (PEM) after they accept the student position they applied for. In the PEM, we get all their I-9 documents to process them in our Workday System for LSU. Our PEMs are scheduled for 1.5 hours.
The topics covered include: how to clock in and out for shifts; submitting time; how to operate both the Workday and SubItUp System; student employee expectations, policies and procedures; the student employee manual; scheduling for CPR; Thorguard System for weather; and any other important items important to discuss.
A student’s start date is three business days after the PEM meeting, where they must complete their Workday Tasks. Once completed, they receive an “onboarding complete” email from TrainUREC and their pro staff supervisor sets up an orientation with them.
When a new student onboards with UREC, can you highlight two to three unique or standout aspects of that training process?
BM: All our students are being told the same thing when it comes to UREC policies and what the expectations are. We also cut out any other middle people with completing their Workday Tasks for the university. We make sure the program area’s orientations aren’t as long and they can do their trainings in a short time.
Have you seen training new student staff change over the years?
BM: Students need more explanation and hands-on trainings to fully understand. For example, telling a student how to submit time versus us going through it on their computers has made a big difference.
We currently have a lot of our students going through screening processes — LSU implemented this — before they can come to their PEM. Screenings include physicals, FBI background checks and fingerprinting, and financial mattering.
What practices help you effectively manage training and onboarding 400 employees?
BM: The best practices are staying consistent and making sure we overly communicate. Also, giving our students access to all training documents has been helpful. We have a links and resources page on all their SubItUp accounts that lets us add the manuals, how to submit time videos, EAP and performance management program explanation.
What advice would you give to others who are in charge of training student staff?
BM: Create streamlined onboarding checklists for every program area. This ensures students are getting the same information. For example, we’re currently in the process of creating supervisor pre-employment meetings. All supervisors who are hired will go through a new supervisor training with me where they learn to fill out UREC Forms, be a leader, have hard conversations with frontline staff, supervisor model, radio and iPad usage, performance management program, and tours. They’ll have a checklist that will be signed off from us notifying their supervisor they’re good to do area supervisor training. That checklist will have all the topics that are covered, and all assistant directors and students will sign off the checklist. The checklist is then saved in their HR file to reference back to when they have a corrective or they say they weren’t trained on a certain topic.
