Building Accountability in First-Time Student Employees

I’m sure you remember your first job and how difficult everything could be when you first started. When you made a mistake, it might have been tempting to brush it under the rug, but how did that turn out? Someone always finds out, and then you’re in more trouble for attempting to cover it up. It was very important that you understood and built accountability. Accountability follows you throughout your life, through school, future jobs, and even in your personal life. You want to instill this same value in your student employees.

First-time student employees are smart, of course, but they haven’t experienced the workplace yet. You don’t necessarily know what history they’re coming with. While you’ll need to mentor them to help them excel in the workplace, you need to begin by building accountability. There are a few things you can do to build accountability in first-time students to prepare them for the rest of their lives.

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Set Expectations

Building accountability starts with setting your expectations for your first-time student employees. Lay out what exactly you expect from them, and accountability will build from there. On day one, tell them that first and foremost, you expect honesty, trust, and accountability. This way, everyone is organized and on the same page, which is critical for any work environment.

While you may think that accountability is a given, a student employee who is new to the workforce might not entirely understand what it entails. A job is more than a place to simply earn a paycheck, but a college student might not quite see the bigger picture yet. That is why it’s your responsibility to tell them what you expect from them and what accountability means to you. It builds trust between everyone on your team and gives them the tools to help them fix any mistakes.

Even if this is a part-time job for your student employees, they do not want to feel stagnant. Accountability allows them to grow and take on more responsibilities.

Start with Small Goals

Even if more responsibility is in the picture, you naturally don’t want to put the weight of the world on your first-time student employees. That being said, you can start building accountability by providing tasks and setting goals for them. Give them something to be in control of and accept accountability for.

Start small, of course. Start with a simple task such as inventory. You can start by checking in on your student employees and then slowly pull back as accountability grows. First-time student employees can slowly become more and more responsible and take charge of bigger tasks as that trust grows.

Provide Feedback

Providing feedback is important when your first-time student employees do something good or bad. Students want to hear about how they are improving and not just what they are doing wrong. This will boost their confidence and help them understand that accountability will be rewarded.

Unfortunately, it is inevitable that they will do something wrong. Everyone makes mistakes, after all. You ideally want these student employees to accept accountability for their mistakes or when things go wrong. You can build this accountability by providing constructive feedback, including how they can improve going forward. If you immediately jump to pointing fingers, they will be less likely to own up to their mistakes and take accountability. Don’t be afraid to sit down with your student employees every now and then and give them feedback, including pointers on how they can improve. If they are struggling, find out the reason why and how you can help them. Maybe they feel insecure in the role and need additional training or mentoring.

Mentoring

Student employees are going to learn by example. Either you can mentor your student or other workers who have similar goals to your student employees. This gives them someone they can ask questions to and confide in if necessary. Choose responsible members of your team who have shown excellent accountability and continue to do so every day. Your first-time student employees will see just how important it is to build accountability and how it positively impacts their work life.

At the end of the day, accountability is up to your student employees, but it is up to you to foster a trusting work environment that will not punish them, but so that they will still see consequences of poor accountability. Set your expectations and teach them about accountability and how valuable it is in the workplace. Start giving them responsibilities to take charge of as an opportunity to build up their strengths and accountability, and provide any kind of feedback you need.

Help them feel valued so that they are not afraid to mess up. Everything is going to help them learn and build accountability that will follow them throughout the rest of their lives.