Published by Programme B
If you’ve always wondered how to engage students properly in your company, you must have already thought of the huge potential benefits.
If we simplify it, a student is a young man who presents a lot of potential for a company brand:
- Lack of huge responsibilities
- Passion
- Curiosity
- Proactivity
- Lots of energy
- Tech-savvy
- Adaptable
- Easy to train
However, it’s not all benefits. Every student has to figure out his professional career, principles, and motivations. Students can often be:
- Irresponsible
- Inpatient
- Uncommitted
- Unprofessional
- Out of place
- Hard to please
- Hard to motivate and inspire
Nevertheless, engaging students and discovering their potential is an amazing thing. Simply put, brand engagement is the process that helps employees, clients, and customers develop rational and emotional associations towards a brand.
Simpler put, engaging student employees in your brand presumes to find the best strategies to help them adapt to your current company policies, expectations, and goals.
Since students are often “hard” to deal with due to their different perspectives and attitudes on life and work, you should always strive to “get to know them better” before you judge them in any way.
In today’s post, we’ll discuss the main steps to engage every student employee and help him adapt to your company’s purpose, objectives, and culture.
Engage Leaders
The moment you recognize strong leadership traits in any of the students you work with, I’d highly suggest you to consider offering him a long-term future in your company.
The reason is quite simple: people who showcase leadership traits will always be good assets to the company.
First of all, they can occupy managing positions since a young age and become incredibly useful once they gain experience.
Second of all, most students are looking for career opportunities. By engaging one of the “bright ones” saying that you absolutely love the way he thinks and that he’ll have a great future if he keeps going the way he does right now, you’re going to make a very good and lasting impression that shall only generate positive outcomes such as loyalty, engagement, and proactivity.
Identify Your Purpose
The purpose of your brand is everything that matters. The purpose is usually the marked destination (build a million-dollar company) or it can be something different like “provide healthy dog food in the entire country”. Either way, you must always know why you’re doing what you’re doing.
If you don’t, then your employees can never know either. In those instances, there will be chaos in the company, especially in the ranks of student employees.
However, if you have a well-established mission (not objectives), you’ll be able to help everyone understand what they’re after and you’ll be able to provide the necessary tools and suggestions for them to start building your dream.
Set Goals and Objectives
The goals and objectives of your brand are similar to your purpose, yet they’re quite different at the same time. A company’s objectives or goals are basically specific commitments that are surrounded by deadlines. For example:
“By the 1th of June, our company will earn $.$$$ on average per month”
“By 10th of June, hire 1 project manager and help with his adaptation”
“By 20th of June, gather a list of 100 potential clients and pitch them all individually”
There are long-term goals and short-term ones. The long ones shouldn’t be too many. Ideally one to three. The short-term goals can be as many as you want, and as many as you can handle.
I’d highly suggest you appoint short-term (and simple) objectives to your employees and allow them to “think for themselves” and find the solutions on their own.
Educate Employees
Students can be easily trained from scratch. Senior employees that join new companies will often have trouble adapting to the brand’s culture, as well as to the brand’s expectations.
Your young employees can be taken from point A (junior) to point B (professional) without too much hustle. What you need to do is help them understand what they’re actually doing in your company and how they can become better.
Educate your employees by asking them to study specific educational materials (videos, books, articles, case studies, etc.). Also, help them grow by appointing some of your senior members to constantly provide the students with feedback and suggestions on how to improve.
Facilitate Employees
Your student employees are like your children – they’re young, reckless, and can often get into trouble. Their personal lives might often be more complicated than you think, and that is why it’s important not to judge them too quickly. Even if you do, remind yourself that your purpose is to actually help them fix those problems and become the best version of themselves.
For example, I always needed help to write an essay when I was a student. I simply couldn’t do it because I was too perfectionist and inpatient. So, if you need to pay someone to write your essay, you can always rely on professional writers, that’s how I did. The writer who took care of my first few orders has eventually provided me with a writing guide that helped me understand what I’m doing wrong and what’s wrong with my mentality.
You see, you can (and should) be the one that picks students up. Once they realize their potential, they will serve it to you!
Celebrate Achievements
Let people know that their hard work is never going to be left unnoticed. Company achievement is a result that influences not just the employee but also the future of the company.
For example, an employee figures out a way to reduce company costs by 10%, and nobody has thought about it. Well, in that case, if I were the leader, that employee would get the “employee of the month” and an instant raise. The reason is quite simple: when others see how well rewarded good efforts are, they won’t be wasting time at work anymore!
Share the Knowledge
Sharing the knowledge that you’ve acquired throughout the years and the hidden principles behind your good work are essential if you’re looking to engage young students and adapt them to your company brand.
According to Case Study Topics Business, every student is likely to discover his passions, traits, and purpose if the work environment he’s in is prioritizing his growth. Simpler put, if you truly care about the growth of your student employees and think long-term, then you’ll share all the knowledge you can!
Takeaways
Brand engagement is a complex journey that cannot be rushed. When you’re engaging students, make sure that you acknowledge their strengths and weaknesses, as well as their life perspective. Give them all the resources and opportunities they need to start thriving, and they eventually bring amazing results to your company brand and business.
As a last piece of advice that I’d give to every entrepreneur who’s wondering how to engage students – try to interact with them on a personal level.
Don’t be just the “boss” or the “manager”. Let them know a little bit of your personal side and show them that you’re also a human. Developing strong rapport and connections with student employees is the best thing you can aim for!
BIO: Sandra Larson always used to be at the top of her class. After graduation, she decided to spend her time learning psychology, HR, and marketing. In her free time, she enjoys writing and publishing high-quality content for various business magazines.