How can you optimise your students’ HR planning?

The fine weather heralds the arrival of the high season. It's time to start thinking about your human resources planning. Recruiting students is an ideal solution to cope with a summer peak in activity or to compensate for your employees' holidays. How do you welcome and support these young people who are passing through your company? How can you organise their assignments to optimise their work and make your HR management easier? iLeo's experts have all the advice you need to manage your student staff in the best possible conditions!

Student work: a strategic resource for your company

Why is student work so successful? Dynamic, flexible and less costly, student status has many advantages for companies. In financial terms, the salaries of these entry-level profiles are low, but it is above all the employer's contributions that make the difference. Rather than the usual 25% gross salary, employers pay just 5.42% in solidarity contributions for student employees.

Hiring students is also an excellent option for simplifying your HR planning. These young workers can absorb your peaks of activity, fill one-off needs and replace your absent employees. The flexibility of students is also a considerable asset. Their timetable allows them to take on assignments during holiday periods, weekends or evenings. Their availability is also an advantage for companies that need rapid solutions.

By recruiting students, you offer them a formative experience in a company and help prepare them for their future careers. Discovering your world and your professions is a great experience for these students, who may well become ambassadors of your employer brand to the next generation. In a tight employment market, considering students as a pool offuture employees is a good strategy for optimising your future recruitment. Having these young people in your teams is also a source of freshness and dynamism, bringing a refreshing outside perspective and new ideas.

What do you need to know when hiring a student?

Student employment contracts are governed by specific regulations, which protect young workers and set out the favourable provisions available to employers. iLeo's digital HR platform is designed to make it easier to manage your student contracts and comply with legal obligations.

The conditions of student status

• Working as a student is subject to 3 main conditions: you must be at least 15 years old, you must no longer be subject to compulsory full-time education (which lasts until the 2nd year of secondary school) and you must be in full-time education.
• Students under the age of 18 may work a maximum of 8 hours a day and 38 hours a week, with a 30-minute break after 4.5 hours' work (or 1 hour after 6 hours).  
• As a general rule, students under the age of 18 may not work on Sundays, public holidays or at night. There are exceptions for certain sectors, such as the hotel and catering industry.

A few guidelines for drawing up your student employment contracts

• Employers must be able to prove the student status of their employees, for example by providing proof of enrolment at a school.
• The employer must draw up a written fixed-term contract that includes a 3-day trial period. The duration of a student contract may not exceed 12 consecutive months.
• The employer must apply at least the minimum remuneration for students set by its joint committee.
• Student status covers 600 hours of work per year, recorded on the student@work* counter. Beyond that, the employer no longer benefits from reduced social security contributions.  
• Some sectors, such as healthcare, benefit from special regulations.

* Having a student@work counter is not enough to provestudent status. Make sure that the applicant is in full-time education,particularly over the age of 25.

Your legal obligations as a student employer

• The DIMONA declaration is compulsory for all students, no later than the first day of employment, failing which they will be liable to pay full social security contributions.
• A medical examination is compulsory for students under the age of 18 or those assigned to high-risk jobs.
• Dangerous work is prohibited for students.
• As with regular employees,companies employing students must take out accident insurance and be affiliated to a SEPPT.

iLeo's advice for optimal HR management of your students

Our IT developers and HR experts combine their skillsto design powerful and innovative solutions for employers. The constantlyevolving functionalities of our HRIS facilitate the administrative managementof your student contracts, as well as planning and legal compliance. Takeadvantage of the advice of our HR professionals for simpler, more efficientday-to-day management.

Communication for a successful "student experience"

These days, quality of life at work is at the heart of human resources issues. The better the supervision of your student employees,the better the results of their assignments. Communication is at the heart of a win-win relationship between employee and employer. By giving clear instructions and exhaustive information, and by spelling out expectations and concrete objectives, you set the framework for a calm and effective collaboration.

Students are generally young and new to the job market. Give them a warm welcome and provide basic training and personalised support. Offer them a contact person they can trust and plan time for discussion. Are you worried that supporting your jobseekers is taking up too much of your time? Don't worry, there are solutions for smooth and efficient communication, to ensure the success of your students' assignment.

“The role of communication in effective professional collaboration is a given at iLeo. Our digital HR platform integrates automated communication functionalities to promote the exchange of information,transparency and mutual understanding while saving you time.” explains Luc Thiriaux, CEO of iLeo.

From iLeo, you can send instant messages to your pool of students and receive their replies. All exchanges are centralised on the platform. It now only takes a few seconds to assign a vacancy to a jobber, communicate a new timetable or get a document signed. Our functionalities also include a system of announcements, both user-friendly and educational, to disseminate advice, tips and useful information.

Optimize your students' task planning

Your young recruits need to know their working hours and assignments so that they feel supervised and ready to carry out their tasks. Optimal HR planning is vital to the quality of their work and the performance of your business. But it's also a tedious task, repeated every week and consuming the time of your human resources staff.

Dealing with repetitive, time-consuming tasks in record time is precisely what HRIS software can do. iLeo has designed a cutting-edge planning tool to help you save time and improve efficiency. We are constantly refining and developing our functionalities to increase their precision and power, thanks in particular to the unprecedented possibilities offered by AI.

Automated student planning allows you to visualise and centralise all your data in complete transparency. A good planning tool saves you a lot of time and simplifies your day-to-day management. Manual entry and the risk of errors are reduced. iLeo also facilitates exchanges with your students, who enter their availability and planned absences directly into the application.

Did you know? Depending on how your activities are planned, you can book hours of work in advance for your jobbers. However, if these hours are not actually worked, you will have to release them so that the student can work them for another company. iLeo provides you with a quarterly report, listing the hours worked and reserved, to make it easier for you toupdate your information on the ONSS website.

Accelerate your digital transition and automate your HR processes

"Like society as a whole, young people are increasingly connected. They're used to organising everything from their smartphones. As an employer, why not welcome these new habits as a godsend? With iLeo's HR platform, you can offer your students an assignment, send them a contract or their timetable, all with just one click! It saves a lot of time and speeds up HR processes."

Using cutting-edge digital tools gives you an image of modernity and professionalism in the eyes of students. It's a great way to raise the profile of your employer brand, but also to build loyalty among your jobseekers. On their iLeo app, they have all the information and documents they need, so they feel reassured and confident about working for your company.

The digital transition has become a priority for all companies that want to stay in the race. When it comes to HR management, the professionalisation and performance of your departments depends on the automation of processes. With a high-quality HRIS, your HR management becomes faster, simpler and more efficient. "Take the case of a student's entry procedure. Do you have a shift available? Thanks to iLeo, you can send amessage to your student pool. The available students reply. You validate the jobist's assignment. The contract is created and sent automatically. It's done!"

Professionalise your student document management

From the moment your students are recruited to the end of their contract, your HR teams are juggling with a large number of documents. Proper management of these documents is essential, both to comply with legal regulations and to supervise your students' work in a professional manner. But it can be a time-consuming task when you have to contact each student and collate multiple pieces of paper, sent through different channels. The risk of error or loss is real and likely to consume a considerable amount of time.

At iLeo, document processing is the subject of continuous reflection to offer powerful, reliable and scalable management functionalities. All your documents are automatically centralised, stored and archived in the same place. You can send them to your social secretariat or a temporary employment agency at the click of a button (link to temporary employment article). Students upload their files directly onto the iLeo digital platform. Traceability means you can keep track of your actions and, for example, prove that a contract has been sent before the start of the assignment. Combining the performance of a digital tool with the skills of your HR staff speeds up and simplifies the management of your documents.

Stay on top of legal compliance

Student status is marked by specific legal requirements. Your company employs young people, some of whom may even be minors. To ensure their safety, it's essential to have a firm grasp of the legislation in force. Make sure that your administrative processes and planning incorporate all the regulations. Organise regular training courses to update the legal knowledge of your human resources staff.

"To ensure that your student HR management is beyond reproach from a legal point of view, our digital platform can help you. iLeo is always at the cutting edge of legal developments and guides you to make your planning easier. The system sends you alerts and notifications to alert you to particular situations or risks of error. For example, iLeo draws your attention when you are planning for a minorstudent, so that you do not exceed the regulatory quota of hours", explains Delphine Cusnieux, HR Business Analyst at iLeo.

Working with students represents a great opportunity for your company and an enriching experience for these budding workers. Effective HR management of your students makes all the difference in getting the best out of these collaborations. Would you like to implement an excellent student management and planning strategy? Contact us. iLeo offers you the most effective digital tools combined with the expertise of its human resources professionals.

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