As summer break looms large and students leave campus, dining room traffic is slowing down for college and university operators. But it’s no vacation—just time to firm up plans for next year. Student employees make up a large percentage of the college dining workforce; Ohio State University in Columbus has around 2,600 of them, says Zia Ahmed, senior director of dining services. So recruiting, hiring and retaining quality people is key. Here are six ways operators are making dining services an attractive place for students to work.
At Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind., student employees hit campus two weeks before classes even start. Members of dining services’ Jumpstart program learn their new job tasks, as well as how to balance employment and classes, for one week before starting work during the university’s annual Boiler Gold Rush orientation week, says Mary Zeiser, manager of student success. While Jumpstart students also are eligible for a $1 per hour incentive above the approved start pay, the program isn’t just about the money.
“We have seen that most of the Jumpstart students are the students that go on to be promoted to student cooks, student supervisors and student managers,” Zeiser says. As of March, 58% of the 2016-17 Jumpstart class had retained their jobs.
Ohio State's dining services wants to meet students where they are—literally and digitally. Ahmed’s team does use traditional forums such as freshman orientation, the university’s job fair and the campus-wide activity fair each semester, he says, but it leans on new-age methods, too. Application kiosks placed throughout campus and pop-up tables where student employees armed with iPads serve as recruiters let potential workers sign up without filling out a ton of paperwork.
“We want to make it as easy as possible to apply for a job,” Ahmed says.
Beyond a regular salary, standout student employees of Purdue’s Student Life department with a GPA above 2.5 can be nominated for the Above and Beyond the Call of Duty award, which is presented four times throughout an academic year. Customers, co-workers, supervisors or the students themselves can nominate an employee for the $300 award.
More than 400 employees attend Ohio State’s annual student appreciation event, where former dining services employees speak about how their time with the program helped in their current careers—from government to insurance companies. “It gives me chills listening to them and how we’ve contributed to their success,” Ahmed says. “[Dining services] augmented the educational experience by giving them a practical application.”
Last spring, Purdue launched a Senior Wine Etiquette Dinner for student employees who have been with Dining & Catering for at least four semesters. A retired professor speaks about wine and pairing it with what students are eating; and between each course, the Dining & Catering HR managers speaks about three to four books students might want to read as they embark on their careers. “Last year, students that attended really liked it, and did a good job promoting it to those students they worked with in their operations,” Zeiser says.
While undergrads may see their dining jobs as a temporary paycheck, Ohio State’s GROW program, or Guided Reflection On Work, aims to show them the “non-tangible values that last a lifetime,” Ahmed says. Supervisors conduct GROW conversations with each student employee once a semester, reflecting on what they’ve learned in dining services and how it might be developing them both as a person and in their careers.
“A communications major said, ‘There’s no way I would have the confidence I have now to get in front of people and talk if I didn’t work for dining services—even though I’m a communications major,’” Ahmed says of a recent GROW chat with a graduating senior. “‘All the things I learned as a communications major, I learned the practical part in dining services.’”
“One reason we know of for losing students is the gap in the summertime—there’s almost a two-month gap when they’re not there,” Ahmed says. His team works to combat that blip on two fronts: by finding workers a short-term position elsewhere on campus, and by emailing students who aren’t on campus over the summer with project updates and to let them know the team looks forward to seeing them back the following year.
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