Attracting, Training, and Retaining Quality Student ILL Staff Members
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Presented at ILLiad International Conference, 2013
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Attracting, Training, and Retaining Quality Student ILL Staff Members
- 1. Attracting, Training, and Retaining Quality Student ILL Staff Members Nora Dethloff, Asst. Head of Info. & Access Services Margaret Dunn, Senior Library Specialist Annie Vass, Senior Library Assistant University of Houston ILL
- 4. Information & Access Services Department Interlibrary Loan Unit
- 5. So why do we think these students are so awesome?
- 7. Picture: http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5069/5856795621_16ed8e78ce_z.jpg It wasn’t always this way…
- 8. Picture: http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5284/5308895065_b0b96d54e3_b.jpg Hiring Process: • Use tools wisely • Make expectations crystal clear • Use intuition • Hire strategically • Be prepared for some casualties
- 12. The survey
- 13. How long have you worked / did you work in ILL? < 1 semester 1-2 semesters 3-4 semesters > 4 semesters
- 14. Did you know about ILL before you worked here? Yes No
- 15. Did your library usage increase after you began to work in ILL? Yes No
- 16. Why did you apply for a job in ILL? On Campus job Fit schedule Friend worked there Other
- 17. How did the job match up to your initial expectations? Much better Somewhat better About what I expected
- 18. Do you consider yourself detail oriented? Yes No Depends
- 19. Do you prefer working in a group or working individually? Depends Individually Group
- 20. Has working in ILL increased your technology skills? 1 = Not at all 3= Somewhat 5 = A great deal 1 – two responses (15.4%) 2 – two responses (15.4%) 3 – six responses (46.2%) 4 – one response (7.7%) 5 – two responses (15.4%) 9 out of 13 respondents felt that working in ILL had increased their technology skills.
- 21. Did you feel the training process adequately addressed all the daily tasks required in your job? Yes No Somewhat
- 22. How long did it take you to feel comfortable with your job duties? < 1 month 1 month 2 months 3 months > 3 months
- 23. What do you like about working in ILL?
- 25. In what ways would you change the training process?
- 26. How do you best learn a new task? Hearing it described Seeing it done or reading about it Doing it and figuring it out as I go
- 27. Would you recommend this job to a friend? Yes No
- 28. What part of your job duties do you like best?
- 29. How would you rank your overall job satisfaction? 1 = Meh, it’s a job 3 = It’s OK 5 = Love it, Love it! 1 – zero responses (0%) 2 – zero responses (0%) 3 – two responses (15.4%) 4 – six responses (46.2%) 5 – five responses (38.5%) 11 out of 13 respondents think the job is good or great!
- 30. Drawing conclusions: What we’ve learned Picture: http://farm1.staticflickr.com/100/290546350_de02738d2e_z.jpg
- 31. Future plans
Editor's Notes
- Introduce selves Please hold questions till the end
- We have our best crop of student assistants. We wanted to find out what we were doing right & what made this group so good. Collated our own observations about the students / supervisor Interviewed student supervisor Surveyed current student assistants and some who recently left Followed surveys with interviews of willing students (You’ll see some of those)
- ≈ 40,000 students (≈30,000 undergrads, 10,000 graduate & professional) Urban setting, many commuter students (although on-campus population is growing) M.D. Anderson Library & branches: 63 staff members, 51 librarians, over 100 student assistants 17,000 door count on 1 day in Fall 2012 – busy place!
- Information & Access Services: Circulation, Reserves, Shelving, Interlibrary Loan, Reference, and computer labs (ARC & LC) Part of public services – basically the public areas of building are ours Highest # staff of any department – 18 , majority of student workers - 52 ILL – 4.5 FTE, plus Nora – 9 students Tasks handled in ILL: - ILL Borrowing / Lending - Document Delivery (Faculty & Distance Ed.) - Paging / Holds / Check-in - Delivery service (physical books – faculty) - Book drop pick up / Branch courier service - Miscellaneous Volume: In Feb 2013: avg. 155 Lending requests, 67 Borrowing requests per day avg. 20 delivery items / day avg. 40 paging requests / day Our students do a LOT!
- Well trained, but not afraid to ask questions Self directed jump from task to task and know where they are needed Adjust to the workflow Take constructive criticism – LEARN from mistakes Work independently, but also as a team (with both the other students and the staff members) Proactive predict needs and prepare for them
- So how did our students get this way? Our hypothesis: TRUST We give our students as much trust as any other staff member. They’re told from the beginning that this is a REAL JOB, and we treat them accordingly. They usually act accordingly. The ones that don’t want to or can’t, leave. They get a lot of freedoms, because we trust them to get the work done. They can listen to music while they work, they can chat with each other while they work, they can even watch videos in the background while they work – as long as they’re working. This helps to keep morale up, and the desire not to lose these privileges keeps students working hard.
- Credit to the student supervisor! The student work environment wasn’t always like this. Used to have a dedicated staff/student manager, whose job was to tell everyone what to do and when to do it. This created a culture where students didn’t move on to the next task until the were told to. Manager position was eliminated. Staff supervised by Asst. Dept. Head. New student supervisor is a member of lending team. She started out in ILL as student asst. and has done almost everything at one time or another. Since she has her own work to balance with student supervision, she trains the students to self-direct, places trust in them, and makes adjustments as required. This system empowers students, and allows them to gain a sense of ownership and investment in the work of the unit. It’s also more fun for them – no one likes to be micromanaged. Prepares them for the “real-world” work environment.
- How to find students who will thrive in a self-directed environment? Use tools wisely: Make sure the job posting provides as much information as possible. Be sure to include: Nature of the work Hours available Limits (don’t call us, we’ll call you) Look at what the student submits: Bombastic cover letters usually a bad sign Look at the resume – how does student present themselves? Overqualification isn’t a bad thing Work history is less important than attitude Make expectations clear At the time of the in-person interview, student supervisor doesn’t give a job description, so much as job expectations. Brief overview of what the student will be doing; long overview of our expectations. Use Intuition: Look at the way they carry themselves – how fast do they move? Do they seem purposeful or relaxed? Watch the way they communicate, their level of understanding. Do they ask clarifying questions? Ask them questions. Are they thoughtful answers, or are they telling you what they think you want to hear? More important to get a sense of the person than to be impressed with their resume / work history. Hire strategically: - Hire personalities that will work with the culture - Hire students who can work at times when you need them. Be prepared for casualties: - If someone isn’t working out, work with them. Make it clear what you expect, offer to help them improve. Set a date and a goal. (i.e., able to process 20 received items in under an hour). If they don’t meet the goal, let them go. If someone doesn’t meet behavioral expectations, don’t give them too many chances. Be polite, but let them go. If someone can’t take criticism, they won’t work. The only way to learn is to make mistakes and adjust your process. If they can’t admit they’ve made a mistake, they can’t learn. Let them go.
- Once you’ve got them, you have to train them. Student managers / trainers The student supervisor starts the training process, but then hands the new student off to an experienced student to be trained on specific tasks. We have two student managers at any time. These are students who have a lot of experience. They are paid a little more hourly, and in turn are asked to work 5 days a week to help with training and supervision. New students repeat tasks, with as much help as necessary, until they feel comfortable. Learn one task at a time. One side at a time (either lending or borrowing) to avoid confusing the processes. Generally it takes about a month to learn everything. This is the goal, and most students in our survey felt that this was how long it took them. ASKING QUESTIONS is so important! Expect a new student to ask questions – worry if they don’t. Ongoing training / changes, new procedures COMMUNICATION Student supervisor communicates changes verbally and via email Changes or reminders posted on a white board at the unit entrance. Students asked to check it every day. Student schedule, delivery run schedule, and any absences are posted in the main processing area. Students need to check these to be aware of when others are coming in, what needs to be done for the day, etc. Again, we encourage our students to ask questions. Not just of the student supervisor, but of other students and staff members as well.
- Hiring too many students seems to lead to slacking off. If students see that there are plenty of other people around to pick up the work, they seem to work more slowly, jump from task to task less frequently, and generally be less efficient. Even our awesome students. We think this is human nature – staff do it too! 9 students seems to be our magic number. We don’t want to be too much over or too much under that number.
- Student appreciation parties at the end of every semester Various other potlucks / parties throughout the year. (National Waffle Day, Tier One Party, Halloween, etc.) Goody bags at holidays like Christmas, Halloween, Valentine’s Day. General casual atmosphere. We encourage chatting, goofing around, joking, and oddness – as long as the work is getting done.
- What we wanted to find out --- Do our successful students share some personality traits that make them better able to succeed in the ILL environment? Is there a particular learning style that is the best fit? What do students like about working in ILL? Why do we attract and keep such good students? What are the benefits of a job in ILL? (And can we do a better job in our postings highlighting these things?) What isn’t working for them? How can we improve? Survey was anonymous. We hoped this would allow them to be candid in their responses. Was distributed to the students via email. They were given 11 days to complete the survey. We brought cupcakes for all the students after the survey closed. (Since we didn’t know who took it or not, everyone got a reward.) Sent to 18 students, got 13 responses
- -More than half have been here at least one academic year -We feel this is a good retention rate for students -Allows us to build our training on existing student expertise.
- Questions 2 & 3 show a tangible benefit for ILL student workers. Students learned about Interlibrary Loan and increased library usage. This knowledge can help them get more out of their studies and improve their overall research skills.
- “Other” answers: interest in libraries; started as a work study This is about what we expected The good news… (next slide)
- …is that most students are pleasantly surprised by working here. This shows that our job posting and interview process aren’t misleading. In fact, we may be underselling ourselves. Survey comments & interviews show: - Have fun on the job - Sense of community / family with other ILL students & staff
- Bad question or strong tendency? This is hard to get at. Students might be saying what they thought we wanted to hear. However, in our 3 interviews, all the students described being detail-oriented in their school and home lives as well. We asked this because we thought being detail oriented would be a helpful trait for this job. We found out, if nothing else, that the students think so too.
- The answer shows that our students are an adaptable group, and can be flexible in their work styles.
- Most students felt that working in ILL had increased their tech skills. Another benefit to the job – experience working with office and imaging technology, and a better understanding to carry into the workforce.
- Asked them to elaborate if No or Somewhat. Answers included: - Process too slow. Didn’t feel like a productive worker until I was trained on everything. - Suggest a training checklist so that all bases are covered. - Couldn’t learn all the special situations. - Things change. So, there seems to be a need for better documentation – We’re on it! The answers / comments may reflect individual learning styles.
- Student supervisor indicated she aims for a one month training period. Student answers seem to indicate this is generally working, but does show some students struggling. On the next survey, we’d like to correlate the hours worked and times worked with this answer. Do students working shorter hours or only morning hours have a steeper learning curve?
- Most often mentioned: Friendly Fun Parties Low-stress Work independently Variety of tasks Flexibility Not having to work directly with patrons Standout answers: “my reading skill has increased and it has helped me on my assignment research” “turned out to be more than just a job for me…This group of people became like a second family”
- Several “nothing” answers One response indicated it was stressful at first. (In contrast to several “no stress” answers in the previous question…Stress is different for everyone.) Another indicated that the existing group could be “clique-ish” and hard to break into. This same respondent mentioned in the previous questions liking the celebrations. Our theory is that these celebrations help to encourage a sense of unity and bridge the gap between feeling like an outsider and feeling like one of the “family.” “I honestly cannot think of any one thing that I dislike…The supervisors …are not afraid to do things for the students, simply to show their appreciation for our hard work” -- The parties and goody bags work!
- - The need for more and better documentation is mentioned several times. There is a documentation project underway, but perhaps we need to focus more on the needs of students, esp. new students. - One response suggested experienced students could make training manuals – a great idea! Two respondents indicated that the training method wasn’t as important as getting in and doing it, repeatedly. Perhaps this illustrates a learning style preference? Are we geared more toward hands on learners? So it seems… Two respondents discuss our buddy system One points out how well it works One wishes the “buddy” lasted longer (‘a couple of days after learning something new’)
- Trying to get at learning styles. We assumed we’d have more hand-on kinesthetic learners, so we were right. However, the field is pretty split.
- So why don’t we get more friend hires?
- Lending processes – especially packaging items to be mailed – were the most mentioned. Odd, since lending was also cited as the most difficult to learn. Scanning articles and the delivery run were tied for second. We expected delivery to be the winner – students get to drive a golf cart around campus in pairs. We always thought this was a big selling point, but only 2 people mentioned it. One student mentioned liking the “random tasks” assigned by managers, saying they “broke up the monotony.” We will feel less guilty about assigning these in the future!
- People like parties. This job isn’t just a one-way street. Students gain from working in ILL – library and research skills, work skills, and a sense of community. We need to continue working on written documentation. Students are pretty happy working here.
- Two-fold: First, we’d like to refine the survey and ask some new questions. We’d also like to find a way to connect with some students who have been less successful. This is hard because, of course, they’re gone. Second, we hope to generalize the survey and expand it to all students in IAS (Information Desk, Learning Commons, Shelving, and ILL) to find out more about training preferences and job satisfaction throughout the department. Margaret has a new role as training coordinator for the department. In this role, she hopes to work on future iterations of this survey to shape training priorities.