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By Tony
Vecchione
All venues located on or within
close proximity of a college or university campus should be using an obvious
yet often over looked labor resource: students.
Due to the nature of presenting an event, part-time staffing is essential
and can often be used in many areas of your facility. Typical areas include
front of house, where students can be used as ticket takers and sellers,
guest services and ushers. Back-of-house staff can be used for set up, touch
up and break down. They can also be used in the office as an extension of
guest services, answering phones and reception responsibilities.
Finding Students
If you look around the campus, you’ll find many areas from which to recruit
these students. The students who live on campus are a captive audience.
Advertise in residence halls, cafeterias and food courts, student unions and
student papers. A huge resource on any campus is the office of student
employment, which will advertise your positions and recommend qualified
students.
 If
you’re looking to hire groups for events, contact the residence life office
and request contact information for fraternities, sororities, club sports
teams and other organizations registered on your campus. Collegiate athletic
teams may also be a good fit for your needs, and you can usually get them on
board by contacting their coaches and offering work as a fundraiser for the
team.
Students enrolled in a sports or event management program at your
institution are also an obvious choice. Recruiting from this pool not only
allows you the ability to hire students truly interested in learning but
also lets them gain practical experience in their chosen field prior to
graduation.
Sending a representative as a guest speaker to both undergrad and graduate
classes within these majors is another highly effective recruiting tool.
Graduate students from these areas make excellent supervisors because
they’re more experienced than undergraduates.
If you’re a facility on a college campus, take advantage of graduate
assistant positions, if you qualify. This allows you to hire graduate
students within the field on a more permanent basis (usually an academic
year) on a stipend salary that can give you the consistency needed to
effectively manage a large student workforce.
FWS Program
Another huge advantage that a facility located on a college campus offers is
the Federal Work-Study Program (FWS). The FWS Program provides jobs for
undergraduate and graduate students with financial need, allowing them to
earn money to help pay education expenses.
If you’re eligible to receive FWS positions for students on your campus,
it’s a way to keep your labor expenses down because it’s a program that’s
subsidized by the federal government for up to 70% of the student employee’s
qualified amount of assistance.
For example, a student that would like to work for you may qualify for
$3,000 in federal work-study aid. This means that for the first $3,000 in
wages the student earns while working for your facility, the federal
government subsidizes up to 70% of it.
Best-case scenario for that $3,000 in wages: only $900 is actually paid out
of your student labor budget. After the student reaches $3,000 in eligible
aid, he can still work for the facility but you’ll be responsible for 100%
of his wages.
Recruiting Secrets
The key to recruiting and maintaining a quality pool of student staff is
giving them a competitive salary, offering them a chance to learn, and
making it a fun place to work.
Public assembly facilities are unique and offer experiences and memories
that other on-campus jobs just can’t compete with. These venues allow
student workers to become an integral part of the campus community by being
at the center of athletic events, graduations, concerts and so much more.
They have the chance to learn what it takes to plan events and the meaning
of excellent guest services.
It’s important to keep the attention of your student workforce by offering
additional incentives to those that stand out, such as employee-of-the-month
programs, pizza parties during mid-terms and finals, and end-of-the-year
banquets with awards and prizes.
 Remember
that current employees are also your biggest recruiters; they interact with
the rest of the campus in classes and at parties. If they love their jobs,
they’ll tell others your venue is a great place to work; such word-of-mouth
advertising is priceless.
As with anything else there is a downside to relying solely on students —
that being semester breaks and holidays, which you’ll have to work around.
The student workforce disappears but the management and the events of the
facility are as busy as ever. It’s imperative that you plan for this and
have alternative staffing sources to compensate.
A good to way prepare is to recruit within the community. During the summer
and winter holidays, recruiting through local high schools, community and
church groups can keep you on track until the students return.
Student staffing is a win for everyone. They’re a bright, energetic
workforce. Take advantage of it. If you build a reputation on campus as a
great place to work the students will come to you and you will be able to
set high standards and offer world-class guest service.
Tony Vecchione is associate
athletic director of George Washington University in Washington, D.C. |
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