Onboarding (pre-induction & induction)

We recognise that all roles are varied. The things shared below are to help guide and offer prompts for things to consider.

We recommend that anything you prepare, you also write it down in some form (such as an induction/student handbook) that you send to students the week before they start their role!

Also on this page:

Pre-Induction

Setting up a staff email account with Unitemps

Unitemps will usually create a staff email account for the role, to ensure this happens- when emailing Unitemps the job advertisement include in your email that you'd like an ITS account for any students that accept the role.

If needed the students can continue using their student email- however this is advised against as we want to ensure that students are able to access staff-specific pages where required, and that they are treated as University staff in their role.

Who is responsible for this?

Unitemps- who will need to set it up in their systems

Manager- who will need to ask, and confirm, with unitemps that emails have been set up

Access- Physical and Virtual

Granting students the necessary access

Please ensure that before any students join that you have granted them access (either through their staff or student emails) to:

Any buildings/shared work areas that the project uses
Any shared drives on the internal computer system
Any SharePoint/Teams sites that they may need to use
- Please also consider making a Teams channel for just the students to use, if one isn't set up for the project already
Any resource accounts relevant to the project or team
- This one is particularly important if the students are expected to do a large amount of emailing, hosting that in a central and shared place will prevent any contacts from being lost at the end of the project and prevents the students from having these emails go to their personal accounts

Who is responsible for this?

Manager- who will need to submit this ask either to the resource account owner or to the card access centre

e.g. for University house- access can be given to different student cards at the reception

ITS- who should be able to guide the manager in granting the access needed

Teams/Folder owners- who will be able to add the relevant students as members to the site

Stakeholders/Meetings

Introductory Meetings

Please set up a meeting with any key stakeholders, such as the wider project team, service owners, etc. Please also invite students to any existing meetings pertinent to their project and remember to allow time for them to introduce themselves within these meetings.

Please allow for appropriate timings for this within their first week- for example, if your student is working 5 hours per week and 4 of those are in meetings, they may struggle to complete any initial work or training- consider spreading them out over a few weeks.
Please include all students (if there are multiple) in the same introductory meetings with stakeholders to reduce any potential feelings of intimidation.

Who is responsible for this?

Manager- who will either need to set these up directly with the stakeholders and put them into students' diaries, or direct an Administrator with whom students need to meet

Administrator- In some cases, there may be an administrator in the department or team who can assist in setting these up

Laptop/Computer

University-owned laptops- Setting up secure access

Please be aware that not all students may have personal laptops and may need to have one provided. It is also pertinent to note that if students will be working on confidential data or will need to store data on their laptops, then it is better to have this be a university-owned laptop.

You may have a departmental process for requesting temporary/short-term loans for laptops. However, if needed, there is a central area where you may be able to request a laptop.

Please allow enough time to acquire and set up the laptops so that students can get familiar with using them.

University Laptop Request

Who is responsible for this?

Manager- who will need to submit the request and arrange for getting the laptop to the student.

ITS- who are responsible for giving out and assigning laptops to departments.

Admin Buddy/Mentor

Support outside of the Team

If it is possible and especially if you run roles on a cyclical basis and have students who have been in the role a longer time and can act as a mentor or buddy then it can act as a huge source of comfort for students coming in to know they have somewhere to direct any 'stupid questions'. By labelling as an Admin or Work buddy, or as a mentor, then that can help students feel it is a less formal, but still necessary, part of their work.

We understand that people have a lot of work, so if this role needs to be held by a staff member, then we recommend labelling them as an Admin buddy and directing students to them for any queries like 'how do I find this room' or 'how do I print'.

Who is responsible for this?

Manager- who will be responsible for sourcing an buddy or someone to support the students outside of the team

Buddy- for the time needed to administer any 'buddy' talks with students (depending on capacity, these may need to be short 10 minute check-ins)

Induction

Please note, there is an assumption that students will be working within a 5-10 hour working role. The time requirements are done as percentages of their time, and are not required to be strictly adhered to, they are indicative of past roles undertaken by students. The sections below are intended as guidance of things that staff may want to consider.

You may want to adjust the hours based on the size and involvement of the role you're advertising for. Remember that this may be students' first time in a professional role, and they may need more guidance than you anticipate- building out time for this through an induction allows you to understand their needs and set an appropriate pace.

We recommend doing a short weekly check-in with students throughout their time in role to help them feel that, if needed, they have somewhere to raise concerns and highlight any needs without needing to specifically ask for it (which can be intimidating).

Week 1 (90-100% of time)

It is highly recommended that the first week of any student's role allows them to catch up on any project documentation and to familiarise themselves with what has happened to date.

Use this time to slowly introduce students to the content, considering the highest priorities and giving them small tasks to complete to get them comfortable with the team's working style and communications.

Learn more

Week 2 (100% of time)

The second week is a good time for students to start being introduced to stakeholders, getting them familiar with who and what they may need to do.

It is also a good time to implement any training they may need to complete, as they will now be able to do so with a better understanding of the context of the project and how this will relate to that.

More detail

Week 3 onwards

As students settle into their role, their time may become more flexible and will depend on the general project requirements. The first 2 weeks may be quite meeting-heavy, but this will likely reduce in week 3. The suggestions here are useful to keep in mind when planning their workload.

Check-in meeting with supervisor/manager (5-10% of time)
Key stakeholder meetings (10-20% of time, especially initially)
Allowing time for work on personal development task (10%)
Any remaining or additional training (ad-hoc as needed)

Warwick Award

Involving students in your project provides them with a valuable opportunity to develop additional skills and gain practical experience. At Warwick, students can earn a digital badge and accumulate points towards the Warwick Award — a formal recognition of their extracurricular contributions beyond their academic studies.

If the Co-creation Warwick Award role doesn't suit your project, you may want to consider reaching out to the Warwick Award team to see how you might be able to get your students recognition.

You can get a better understanding of the award here!

Warwick Award

If what you’re doing falls under co-creation, there is already a co-creation section set up on Warwick Award.
Each student will receive 5 core skill points for each 5 hours of effort- this is maximised at 10 CSP for PHTs and 20 CSP for UG students. There are different ‘activity groups’ students can get points for, and this sits within the Departmental Opportunity group!

Preview of co-creation role

Students are also automatically eligible for a LinkedIn digital badge when they complete their Co-creation role and the reflections required as part of the Warwick Award, which they can get by following the instructions here:

LinkedIn digital badge

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