Navigating Student Hiring using Jira Service Management: Point of view and Considerations

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In previous articles, I've delved into various topics on employee onboarding and offboarding, showcasing how we can build a modern HR Service Management using the Atlassian Platform. Today, I want to zoom in on a specific use case within the public sector—Higher Education. Specifically, I'll be exploring how we can streamline student hiring processes using Jira Service Management.

While on the surface, student hiring may resemble the HR workflows of corporate entities, a closer look reveals its unique complexities. Most universities engage student employees, encompassing both work-study and non-work-study positions, as well as graduate and professional students. These students contribute to various facets of university life, from supporting educational and research programs to bolstering operational functions.

Let's take a look at how the University of Virginia frames student hiring:

"Student employment is an essential element of the University’s mission and operations. Each year, approximately 5,000 students work in over 7,000 on-Grounds positions, some supporting UVA’s education and research programs as part of their academic training, others earning valuable employment experience while supporting University operations."

Source Link

Before diving into specifics, let's outline the fundamental steps involved in hiring a student within a university setting:

• Step 1: Posting a Job
• Step 2: Determine Pay Rate
• Step 3: Hiring a Student Employee
• Step 4: Paying an Employee

Student Intake Form

The initial step to kickstart the hiring process often involves completing a student intake form. Here are a few examples where universities have adopted Jira Service Management to facilitate this phase.

Link Source: University of Alabama

Here is one more from University of Texas Austin

Link Source

HR Workflow

Much akin to corporate HR processes, student hiring encompasses background checks, worker profile creation, IT system access, offboarding, and payroll setup. However, these processes are ripe for automation, not just ticket management but automating the tasks but at the same time enforcing governance and complying with policies.

This is where Onward apps come into play. Leveraging OnRamp, tailored onboarding experiences can be crafted and tasks automated by integrating with respective applications such as Workday for HR, Okta for Identity management, and Blackboard for student services.

Automating Student Hiring using JSM

The good news is, many universities have already embarked on this journey by building student services within Jira Service Management. Taking the next steps of automating will simplify HR tasks and extend the powerful platform to non IT use cases. The insights shared in this blog aim to enhance the realization of investments in JSM by automating tasks and streamlining processes.

Automating Student Hiring and Employment is just a start, imagine if we can simplify HR tasks related to Public Safety, Library Services, IT System Access etc.  This will unlock huge potential and a better Enterprise Service Management. Here is an. example of taking the automation to the rest of the JSM projects.

Source Link: University of Alabama - Jira Service Management Portal.

Student Assets Integration to Assets in JSM

Synchronizing student data with assets in Jira Service Management streamlines lookups, data validation, and enables automation of service requests. With tools like OnLink, this integration becomes seamless. Once the student data is in assets we can leverage the benefits of the Atlassian platform by integrating with Confluence pages etc.

If you find this topic useful, I invite you to my upcoming presentation on "Elevating the student lifecycle management: Student onboarding and offboarding" at the Team Tour: Government digital event.

Resource Links:

• University of Alabama Service Desk
• UCLA Library Service Desk
• University of Texas Austin Service Desk