Talking Stick - May/June 2019 - 40

The Super-Visor

supervisor (e.g., pop in to the office
or workspace, instant message, or
email) and how often progress reports
are expected. Depending on the work
and the structure of the organization,
the authors strongly recommend at
least one weekly check-in between
supervisor and student employee.
A new trend in small businesses
and large companies is the morning
huddle, where teams gather daily for
a quick status update from each team
member. Huddles can be used to keep
team members informed of team
progress, individual priorities, and
any positive recognition or requests
for help. Such huddles exist as quick
information briefings, not problem-solving meetings. How might a
huddle work in a student employee
environment? Daily huddles are
unrealistic given that students don't
all work full time or, likely, during
the same shift; however, the idea of a
quick, regular meeting can keep student employees in tune with overall
departmental accomplishments, challenges, and priorities; acknowledge
individual contributions; and keep
everyone connected.

Managing the Day-to-Day
Finding the right level of responsibility for each student employee and
the right amount of communication
and feedback only happens on the job
and requires attention, reflection, and
adjustment. Once the work begins,
the first weeks are critically important; in that time, your students will
demonstrate their understanding of
expectations and competence in the
work, their ability to complete tasks
and assignments on time, and the
extent to which they have integrated
into the organizational culture. A
supervisor should schedule extra time
during the first weeks to observe the
student employee in action, respond
to questions while they engage in
their work assignments, provide role

TALKING STICK

modeling and coaching where needed,
and continue to clarify standards of
performance. Supervisors need to
understand that new employees need
time to adjust to their new roles and
responsibilities, and as a result their
peak performance will likely not occur
in the first weeks. As such, it should
not be an expectation.

A supervisor's job is to solve
problems, so expect them and
reframe them as opportunities
to find good solutions.
While the semester progresses, a supervisor will delegate new
tasks, role-model ethical behavior
and decision-making, coach for new
skills, provide feedback, and evaluate
performance. Occasionally a student
employee handles tasks with ease and
is ready to accept increased responsibility not originally listed in the
job description. When these exciting
discoveries occur, supervisors may
wish to invite those student employees
to give input into the type of projects
they may want to initiate or any problems they have discovered on which
they would like to work. Conversely,
on other occasions, student employees
do not meet expectations for performance, which may warrant supervisory conversations, reclarification of
expectations, specific and substantive
constructive feedback, additional
training, or all of the preceding.
At some points during the semester, even your star employees may
question their abilities, lose focus,
feel insecure or frustrated, have
conflicts with peers or staff, and experience failure or a general malaise
because the work and the work environment are not what they expected.
Supervisors should be watchful, and
if they notice that something seems

off with an employee, they need to
meet with that student and discuss
it, supportively. In fact, a supervisor
might consider the roles they play in
mentoring student employees.

Giving Feedback
Some people say that mentoring,
being supportive and encouraging, is
the good part. But when most practitioners hear the word supervisor, they
think "evaluation" and "critique"; they
fear conflict. It's not that bad. Your responsibility as a facilitator of learning
is to guide your student employees
and help them learn, grow, achieve,
accomplish, and be successful. We
know that time on task and feedback
on performance are vitally important
to learning, so let's consider this whole
idea of feedback. Some management
scholars have focused on the emotional aspect of feedback. Supervisors can
become more emotionally ready to
give feedback by dismissing the notion
that feedback is confrontational and
negative and embracing the idea of
feedback as performance enhancing.
Consider the types of constructive,
purposeful, and encouraging feedback
you might have received in the past.
Perhaps you took guitar lessons and
your teacher corrected your finger
positions so that you could play a
new chord. Or some of you may have
enrolled in a language course and your
teacher or possibly your peer conversation partner corrected your vocabulary,
verb tense, or accent so that you could
improve your ability to communicate
more effectively in that language. How
about athletes? If your basketball coach
corrected your free throw technique
or your softball coach directed you to
take an extra hour of batting practice
so that you could improve your view of
the ball and your swing, all of that is
feedback. These examples demonstrate
the positive, growth-oriented, and supportive yet critical feedback conversations that take place every day.

Talking Stick - May/June 2019

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