The No. 1 Person in your Graduate Development Program
While you are looking after your graduates, who is looking after you?
Graduate development programs rarely exceed the graduate manager’s own level of development.
Our business, DBL, only grows to the degree that we, the leaders, first develop ourselves. Our development is totally our responsibility.
The same can be said for graduate development programs. They depend a lot on the degree to which graduate managers first develop themselves.
As you look towards 2010, here are three things you can do to develop the No. 1 person in your graduate development program – YOU!
1) Take 15 mins every day to read a new piece of personal development or leadership material ... it could be a book, an article, a website or a whitepaper. Anything that will expand your thinking.
2) Meet at least one new person from across the industry for a coffee-chat each month for the next 6 months. Share challenges, discuss ideas and collaborate on solutions.
3) Attend the AAGE conference in November with the intention of gaining a lot personally, not just professionally (and feel free to join our session on Day 1 at 2:45pm!)
By developing yourself you are in a better position to develop your graduates.
Designing your 2010 Graduate Development Program
2010 will be the year of innovation in Graduate Development. It’s time to think differently.
More than ever, today’s business leaders and managers expect significant return on graduate training spend coupled with high engagement levels and a pipeline of future leaders.
How can you innovatively design, implement and measure your 2010 Graduate Development Program to achieve these objectives?
Here are three innovative things you can do:
1) Host a round table discussion with non-competing employers from different industries to innovate, learn and expand each other’s thinking. You never know what you might learn from outside the box!
2)Ask yourself: “If we had half the budget and half the time, how would we exceed our objectives of providing the significant return to the business, high engagement levels and a pipeline of future leaders?”
3)Forget smiley sheets after training to measure success. Use a tool to measure specific behavioursand skills before, during and after your graduate development program to identify how well each graduate actually applies their soft skill development on the job. Use this data for individual development plans, performance reviews and talent identification.
2010 will be the year of innovation in the graduate space and we’re looking forward to seeing what’s possible.
The War for Engagement: Survive or Thrive
As we sit down to set our budgets for next financial year, the war for talent might be over. However the War for Engagement has exploded on to the scene. Will you be prepared?
Regardless of the greatest economic downturn since the Great Depression - the first recession in a generation - many graduates have been largely unaffected in their jobs. In fact, many feel ‘comfortable’ in their work and personal lives amidst the turmoil around them.
This is good news ... isn’t it?
In this environment employers face the risk of a disengaged graduate workforce focussed on ‘sitting out’ the downturn and ‘hanging on’ to their jobs in order to ‘survive’. In the boom, disengaged talent got up and left ... in the recession disengaged talent will stay. I am not sure which is worse.
This is the War for Engagement. And the good news is we can win.
There are three things you can do to ensure your graduates get engaged and ‘thrive’2009/2010:
1)Challenge your graduates to move from ‘survive’ to ‘thrive’ mode in their thinking and approach to work and careers and support them through individual or group coaching, mentoring and short, energetic master classes to support their shift.
2)Get smart with ROI by adopting a balanced, blended approach to development using online technology and face-to-face training supported with pre and post follow up.
3)Skill your leaders to build strong multi-generational relationships with graduates remembering that graduates first engage with leaders, then with their roles and finally with your organisation ... especially in times of change and ambiguity.
Graduates claim ‘the simple things in life are often the best’
Thinking back to my personal graduate program experience, the first 60-90 days shapes graduates’ expectations of the year ahead and potentially a long, rewarding career with their employer. 53% of graduates expect to stay longer than 5 years.*
Graduates openly shared the highlights and challenges of their first 60-90 days when we launched a series of short, funky and straight-to-the-point in house Master Classes for clients this month.
While it appears graduate’s enthusiasm and motivation has not diminished amid current economic conditions, graduates have been adamant that the “simple things in life” within their graduate development programs have made a huge difference to their first 8 weeks.
This is great news for Graduate Managers... 5 simple steps can be taken to gain great ROI on time and money and build high performance and engagement levels in the short and long term.
The 5 Simple Steps in graduate development in 2009 are:
1) Bringing graduates together regularly
Graduate relationships can last a lifetime, add to the cross-business culture of your company and help form the foundations of long term engagement. In times of change, strong relationships in these groups can also help to retain and inspire graduates when times get tough.
2) Developing and engaging their leaders in the graduate program
How engaged are your leaders in building strong graduate relationships and what can you do to equip your leaders to do so? Receiving quality on-on-one feedback has made a huge difference to graduates this year and has been spoken about passionately. Leaders work with graduates every single day. The majority of graduate’s development rests in the hands of people in leadership roles in the business.
3) Skill and knowledge development
We all want to develop and become more as people. Graduates are now looking to you to help equip them to stand out from the crowd and succeed in tough economic times. In 2008, the AAGE reported that 79% of graduates ranked Training and Development as the single most important factor in deciding who to apply for.*
4) Meeting (very) Senior Leaders
In times of uncertainty people look for strong leaders to follow. People buy in to leaders before they buy in to organisations. Graduates have thoroughly enjoyed interacting with leaders in very senior positions who they wouldn’t normally get to talk to day-to-day.
5) Talking about change openly and honestly
Graduates have appreciated knowing exactly where they stand, the company’s plans and how they are fairing against their competitors. The graduates who have had this haven’t been overly concerned or distracted by the current on-goings in the outside world when information has flowed openly and honestly. They do however realise they need new skills to deal with a new world and have high hopes their graduate development program will provide this. Will yours?
