Two Surprising Ways Small Businesses Can Navigate a Tight Labor Market

Hiring employees during The Great Resignation, demands creativity. It’s time to go back to school and consider a student workforce.

The economy continues to recover from its pandemic slump. The U.S. Department of Labor reported that in February 2022, job growth is up, unemployment down and wages appear to be flattening. While things look up, small businesses need to stay diligent and continue to build their lead pipeline—and a student employment program could be the answer.

Why should small businesses hire students?

Hiring students can benefit your small business as much as it benefits those student employees. Here’s how.

Expand and vet your talent pool

In a competitive hiring market, you’ve got to think outside the box when it comes to candidates if you can’t find someone who fits the traditional mold. Using student employees could help you see new possibilities in untapped talent. Plus, you get a chance to mentor that talent early in their career. You can help them hone specific skills while your mentorship can set the stage for future success. Not to mention, your recruitment efforts will become more efficient and effective.

Increase productivity?

Hiring students can provide overloaded staff with the extra support they need. These staff members are then free to focus on the tasks that only they can do. As your productivity increases, so will your profitability.

Provide professional development

Hiring students gives your other employees the chance to become mentors. They’ll get on-the-job training that can translate to management and leadership positions from people-related skills like communication, relationship development and emotional awareness to task-related skills like time management, delegation and problem solving.

Tap new perspectives

Nontraditional candidates like student employees can bring a wealth of new ideas and perspectives to your organization. They may be able to see things you don’t because they won’t have the baggage or blinders of the past. They may be able to make new connections.

Apprenticeship versus internship

Now that you understand the benefits of student employment, let’s get down to brass tacks. You can always hire students as part-time or full-time employees, or you can institute a formal student employment program like an apprenticeship or internship. Here’s how they stack up.

You might think of apprenticeships as limited to skilled trades, but apprenticeship can work for just about every industry from hospitality to healthcare, transportation to telecommunications. Apprenticeship programs have steadily been gaining traction. According to the Department of Labor, over 636,000 Americans worked as apprentices in over 25,000 programs in 2020, representing 70% growth from 2011.

Check out this map, based on data from the U.S. Department of Labor, to discover the quantity of active apprentices in WOW! communities.

Best practices

Before you start either an apprenticeship or internship program, be sure you have an accurate picture of what your program will entail. Here are some tips.

• Think of student employees as an extension of your workforce rather than free, cheap or replacement help.
• Recognize that there’s no such thing as a quick hiring fix. It takes time, energy and patience to get students up to speed.
• Give them work that matters. They came to your small business to learn and grow. Help them do that with meaningful projects and tasks.
• Craft a job description so that you and the student understand roles and responsibilities. Articulate what you want them to achieve during their time with you. Decide how many hours a week you’d like them to work and at what rate. Offering a paid internship helps promote equity by attracting students who may not otherwise afford to work for college credit only.
• Take time to onboard them to your business and the work they’ll do. You may need to spend more time upfront showing them the ropes and reviewing expectations, especially if they are new to the workforce.
• Assign them a manager who can also be their mentor. This person should have both the time, talent and patience to dedicate to a student employee.
• Stay flexible. Both you and your student employee will have learning curves. Experiment to see what works best for each of you.?
• Make it social. In a recent Sloan Review article, researchers found that social events have a big impact on employee retention. Keep your student employees engaged and loyal with company-sponsored social events like lunches, happy hours or group activities.

Get schooled

Ready to start an apprenticeship program? Head to apprenticeship.gov . You can connect with an apprenticeship consultant, build a new program or join an existing one, register your program and get looped into the nationwide talent database. You may even be eligible for apprenticeship funding opportunities.?

That’s moving your business forward, one idea, one student employee at a time. At WOW! Business, we’re proud to partner with small businesses like yours to solve your greatest challenges—together.?