DEVELOPING
YOUNG EMPLOYEES
BY Gary Weinstein
Employers remain concerned that too few Further Education College and University graduates are ready for the world of work. They would like to see these Institutions doing more to develop business and soft (employability) skills in young people, however the reality is that it will take time to change the tertiary education system.
To this end, employers need to continue taking responsibility, and invest in the development of business and soft skills of their first-time young employees. This is an opportunity for employers of all sizes as demonstrated in this quote from a university careers service professional:
“HESA reported around 550,000 HE graduates last year [2013]; High Fliers reported that the top 100 employers provided fewer than 17,000 [3%] graduate training schemes.
Graduate schemes are sold as hot commodities, whereas SMEs have a cool factor of zero.
In reality, the vast majority of students who apply for graduate schemes experience rejection after rejection.
We should actually move away from giving top employers priority, if we really want to help our students.”
Consideration 1 – Your Audience.
A graduate-style programme should be purpose built with the audience in mind – i.e. inexperienced first-time employees who haven’t worked in a company previously and therefore don’t have any experience of working with colleagues, managers, partners and customers.
Consideration 2 – Programme Structure.
Large employers often have the in-house resources to create, deliver and manage a graduate development programme.
These programmes concentrate on rotating graduates around departments for 6 months at a time, over a 2 year period.
At the end of 2 years the graduate will choose what area of the business they want to work in.
Few SMEs have the in-house resources to provide such a programme. Nor do they recruit sufficient graduates to justify the cost of running an in-house programme, so they need to outsource their graduate-style development programme to an external training provider.
If you fall into this category then when looking for a provider, see that their programme is tailored for a young audience.
Look for a programme with a duration of about 1 year, with classroom sessions spaced approximately monthly as this lessens the impact on the employee’s day-to-day business activities. This way your new employees will have time to development their knowledge and skills between sessions.
See if the programme can extend to a 2nd year to develop their knowledge and skills further, in-line with more traditional graduate programmes. That way you’ll increase the likelihood of attracting and retaining these employees for the long-term, making it an even more worthwhile investment.
26 | TRAINING MAGAZINE EUROPE APRIL 2015