What are the responsibilities of a WIL supervisor?

Your responsibilities as a WIL student supervisor are similar to what's expected when supervising a regular employee. However, WIL students require more support from their supervisor, particularly for students with limited workplace experience or during their first couple of work terms.

As a WIL supervisor, your responsibilities is to provide adequate support includes being able to effectively and efficiently onboard them, supervise their progress, integrate them into the team, and provide them with opportunities to learn and grow.

Recruitment

During the recruitment phase, your responsibilty as a WIL employer is to respect the University of Waterloo's processes regarding WIL hiring, interviewing, and job offers. The job description must be accurate and reflect the job duties, qualifications and skill level required. You should enter the recruiting process prepared to host a student, with adequate working conditions, training, and supervision in place for the student to perform their tasks effectively and safely. In addition, be ready to provide a workplace accommodation if requested.

If you are hiring a co-op student, please read Roles and Responsibilities: Employers before you begin the recruiting process.

Onboarding

Onboarding can typically proceed just as it would with any other employee, however, there are a few areas in which students may need more explicit explanations due to a lack of experience with workplaces in general. In Engage/Convert, we share tips on to onboard a WIL student.

Supervision

Supervision involves regular meetings, feedback on performance, and assistance with both goal setting and making connections between the work and their academic program. Sometimes this supervision is provided by a sole person, sometimes by a few different people, and sometimes formal oversight by a supervisor is combined with less formal support provided by a mentor or buddy. This supervision naturally requires a time commitment, however, it can also provide reciprocal benefit as you learn more about how your company is perceived along with the needs of the future generation you are looking to hire.

Integration

The WIL student experience is much improved when they are fully integrated into the team.

This requires a bit of pre-work to make sure your current employees are on board and know how they will be expected to interact with the WIL student. It also requires actively including the WIL students in team activities, both professional and social.

Learning Opportunities

Students give WIL experiences the highest ratings when they feel like those experiences provided them with opportunities to learn and grow.

As such, it is a good idea to have a plan for providing WIL students with learning opportunities and include them in the same kinds of professional development your other team members might undergo.

For most WIL opportunities, towards the end of the experience the institution will ask you to complete a student performance evaluation. The evaluation verifies that the student completed the experience and will receive the credit, and often provides the student with takeaways for their personal and professional development.