The many business benefits of hiring students
With workforce shortages across the board here in the UK, there’s one relatively untapped resource some employers have yet to recognise – Students.
Current students are young, energetic, digitally savvy, enthusiastic and willing to learn. They also have heads full of ideas, know their own market and are eager to develop both as people and as professionals.
If you’re a business in the UK and are desperately trying to fill vacancies, local colleges and universities can help.
The benefits of employing students
If you’re still unconvinced that this relatively untapped market has huge potential, this blog post will share some tangible benefits of hiring a student. Whether that’s part-time, full-time, as a graduate in their first job, summer job, internship or something else, students can offer a lot.
Here are just a few reasons why employing students offers real benefits:
Find your employee of the future
Hiring a student is all about investment. Investing in their future and their future skills and in your business. Once the contract is done, the student will go back to class and continue their education.
But perhaps not. Perhaps that student becomes so impressed with your operation they want to come back once they graduate.
That offers huge potential for the longevity of your business and reduces the cost of talent acquisition significantly.
The student is also a known quantity. You know them, they know you and you both know you can work together. That’s a serious benefit!
Related skills
If the student you hire is doing, or has completed, a related course, they will have the latest information, processes and skills. Most colleges and universities regularly revisit courses and curriculums to ensure they remain relevant and deliver the skills businesses need.
Hiring a student opens that door. You can access the newest ways of working, new ideas, new processes and new perspectives.
Energy and enthusiasm
Nothing compares to the energy and enthusiasm of young people. They are full of life, ready to learn and develop and are willing to put in the effort to get ahead. You could use all that energy and enthusiasm for your own benefit by directing it towards productivity.
Flexibility
With so much energy and enthusiasm and a willingness to learn and develop comes flexibility. We all know some areas of the workforce have families or become set in their ways, so are relatively inflexible.
Students offer the opposite. They are often willing to work extra hours, mixed hours, unsocial hours and more as long as you make it worth their while. If you work in hospitality, events or other business where hours can be mixed, this is a huge untapped resource.
Transform a workplace
If your current workforce has been with you for a long time or are running out of ideas, hiring a student could change all that. They can bring an injection of energy and new ideas, new approaches, training and relevant knowledge.
They can also have a willingness to say ‘yes’ to most things instead of ‘no’ and can genuinely transform a workplace.
They are a target market
If students or young people form part of your target market, employing a student provides valuable insight into how they think, act and consider decisions. Even with the best will in the world, unless you’re part of that market, coming up with products, services and strategies for them is guesswork at best.
If you employ part of that target group, you get timely, relevant insight into the reality of that market.
Temporary resources when you need them
Do you run a seasonal business? Work in hospitality and need help during summer? A student could help.
If you’re not able to provide full-time employment, work placements and summer jobs are still in demand. If your industry sees upturns in summer or during term holidays, students can deliver the productivity you need to deliver. Students are uniquely willing to take on part-time and seasonal work. Very few other areas of the workforce have this flexibility so it’s a definite benefit to business.
Shape the future
Hiring a student is also your opportunity to mould a young person into someone with a future. While classes provide a lot of what someone needs in a profession, it won’t provide everything. This is where your knowledge and experience can be used to help shape the employees of the future.
Cheap labour
Let’s not kid ourselves, we are in business to make money and students are cheaper to hire than more experienced workers. While that’s not an excuse to pay pittance, it is an opportunity to hire or hire more for a lower cost.
Build relations with colleges and universities
If your business provides products or services a college or university could benefit from, hiring their students is a great way to build relationships with them. Not only do you get all the benefits you see here, you also help build goodwill with the institution. You may perhaps be offered other opportunities once they realise you’re reliable and worth doing business with.
Help with new ways of working
How many of your current workforce know what the latest messaging app is? Or what the most popular social network is? Is Facebook in or out? Should you use TikTok for marketing or not?
Given these networks count their users by the billion, they are an essential marketing tool. But how well do you know them? It’s very likely students know them far better! If you’re trying to reach customers through unfamiliar means, a student could provide valuable insight. They could also help you come across well, without sounding out of your depth.
Hiring students for your business
As you can see, there are many tangible benefits to hiring students. They offer characteristics not available in other parts of the workforce and can genuinely help transform a business.
Yes, they will need training and development. They will need to be brought into the workforce and be shown how industry works. But, in return for investing that effort, you get a young, energetic member of staff that could help your business in innumerable ways.
Make sure you know the relevant guidance and legislation for employing students beforehand though, just in case. For those reasons and more, we recommend every business hires a student when they need a boost. You won’t regret it!
This article was written and researched by Sanctuary Students, a student accommodation provider in Liverpool.