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Take Care Of The Students Who
Take Care Of Your Guests

By Jeff Hunter

TAs with all situations, there's good news and bad news. A sluggish economy has forced the full-time, long-term unemployed into accepting lower wage positions or part-time work traditionally filled by students or retirees. Those who rely upon students to provide support for our venues have benefited from a displaced workforce.

Student employees have never been easier to find. In our venue, sign-up sheets for concessions are easier to fill as money-starved students have overcome historical aversions to hawking hot dogs, pretzels and popcorn. One recent broadcast e-mail to faculty and staff asking for students to work during the summer break yielded as many responses from college or college bound students as during scholastic year recruitment.

Bad news, good news. But there could be more bad news. A mild trend might be developing in regard to the student workforce.

Many of you serve dual purposes: you manage a university facility dedicated to students yet you also run a business. You prepare and administer budgets trying to balance fiscal responsibility with showmanship all the while mentoring and teaching a student work force. Students fulfill significant roles in your organizational structure. Some perform as leads, supervisors or managers often in charge of other students, vendors or volunteers.

Generally, student wages are established by the federal work-study guidelines or the institution. At or near minimum wage, there is usually little or no room to deviate from the amount of per hour payment in spite of the wide variety of duties and the amount of commensurate skill required to complete the assignments.

Basically, wages are off the rack in a one size fits all. The student stagehand rate is the same as the admin assistant in sociology as the dishwasher in the coffee shop.

There are two significant challenges to restricting student wages to a flat rate regardless of knowledge, skills and abilities As the economy rebounds, external market opportunities will increase for all workers. Experienced job seekers who have been shut out of the market will return to newly resurrected positions leaving "stop gap" jobs unfilled. Retail, food service and light industry will seek less experienced students as replacements with higher pay than university wage.

Some jobs will pay significantly more. As with any position, those with better skills and training will find employment at higher wage rates.

Behavioral economists believe humans are a singular species, in that we express concern when we believe we have attained too much. It times of need and want, such as economic turmoil, people may feel guilty over their own good financial fortune. This worry over inequity can de-motivate workers from abandoning existing employers, regardless of how badly they perceive their situation.

However, during stable economic or political times, workers tend to exhibit the opposite or what's labeled "inequity aversion." Frans de Waal of Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, and colleague Sarah Brosnan published their results of "equity" experiments with capuchin monkeys. The findings have shed light on human behaviors in regard to "task" versus "reward."

In general, inequity aversion defines the process of distribution of rewards following the successful completion of individual or group tasking. Those who benefit from rewards are not only interested in their share but the distribution of the shares of others. If an employee perceives they contribute more to the project success, they will surely want a greater share of equitable compensation. Why should one employee work harder than all others without receiving higher pay? Or, if we are all working for the same pay, why is my job hotter, heavier, smellier or greasier? The bullet train to job dissatisfaction is discovering a colleague makes more money than you - no matter how satisfied you were before knowing.

Economists have determined that our principle of economic fairness is not rational, as we thought, but is based on pure emotion. Humans tend to make spur of the moment financial decisions that are counter-productive to our fiscal goals.

In essence, as the job market expands, qualified student workers will be absorbed into the non-university work force. Until rewards are commensurate with the real world, those people you've trained and retained will overcome inequity concerns, developing an aversion to perceived inequity and will jump ship over compensation or "they don't appreciate me" syndrome. It is the principle of basic reciprocity - a penny for a commensurate amount of goods or service - with human emotion folded into the mix.

In order to hold on to the workforce, managers with traditional university structures may have to improvise reward structures commensurate with the difficulty and skill levels of student workers. One obvious solution is to mimic pay scales found in the free market. The more challenging the job, or the greater the skill required, the greater the payment.

Other financial rewards may include tuition reimbursement programs for job loyalty, inclusion in benefits offered to fulltime employees, or wage differentials for late shifts or degree of difficulty. One university uses the best and the brightest of their computer students to perform information technology projects. The students are paid free market rates still amounting to a savings of 60 percent over vendor outsourcing.

For institutions reluctant to assume more risk or increase head count, there are a few entertainment-oriented payroll services charging staffing fees less than 20 percent, including worker's compensation, taxes and federal and state contributions.

The institution can keep its official wage structure intact while offering equitable compensation in special projects or situations. This is particularly helpful when using students for outside rentals that are easily distinguished from university functions.

In fact, a great incentive is to reward loyal university events' workers with higher- paying industrial/commercial gigs.

A point value system is helpful in rating work details. More popular tasks might be weighted lightly as a "one" with the least popular details given a "five." Point totals might be used to reward those consistently on time or who always show up for the assignment. Point rewards can be distributed in the form of gifts, job choices, bonuses or, not forgetting recognition, as job titles or employee of the week/ month/year. Our convocation program requires students to amass points, outside of class, in community service, the arts, business or religion. Several large student-produced concerts throughout the school year are run by students whose only compensation is convocation credit.

These productions have a waiting list of qualified applicants who participate for the love of the business and a production position/title Most workers prefer wage equity to other incentives. Our venue is hiring a coordinator who is responsible for all student job duties. That person will work with Human Resources to survey compensation, altering student and part-time staff rates when appropriate. As well, they will manage incentive programs, making changes in order keep the worker's interest.

We hope not only to survive the "worker shift" but also to actually develop more student staffed and student run departments replacing outside vendors.

Nothing is forever. Student workers' strengths will be as cyclical as the national economy. Even if your institution utilizes appropriate incentives, it is important to ensure the equity of distribution maintains pace with the outside world, and methods for worker satisfaction and retention are consistently reviewed and improved

Jeff Hunter is general manager of the Curb Event Center at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee and can be reached at hunterjl@mail.belmont.edu.