I'm looking for 'best practice' in terms of Graduate Development in a multi-sited (small branch) business. Graduates would be expected to learn the business (which involves quite a lot of technical ability), as well as work in 'small' branches i.e. 2-5 people, and (probably) have a secondment in head office.
Any musts/must nots that you can share?
3 Responses
Graduate Development
Hi there,
Well where to start as there’s a lot to consider with Grad Dev programme. We have extensive experience of working with grad schemes for large multi-nationals.
http://www.toojays.co.uk/index.php gives some detail.
But if I were to advise on some key points based on our experience I’d say..
1. Educate the rest of the business – let them know as much about the Grad programme as possible (Expectations / purpose / high standards / credibility of grads etc etc.
2. Educate placement managers – Line managers often don’t know how to utilise or engage with grads during their secondment and as a result this can massively impact on the grad experience…limiting their learning and effecting their motivation.
3. Have a clear structure of Development, (Business & Soft Skills) that evolves and grows with the graduate. I.e no point giving them knowledge on handling change and conflict as a last workshop on their programme- they will have benefited from knowing from the start!
4. Performance manage them transparently…and get the Grads feedback…and act on it.
Plenty more after 10 years of supporting Grad programmes…let me know if can help further.
Regards
Lee
http://www.toojays.co.uk
Training Material
I use our Graduates to produce training material as part of their secondments in different departments.
The Grads get great experience learning about each department, the department gets some useful material they can use for seminars etc, SME’s with limited time availability check rather than produce material and I get material that can be published and earn the business money.
All of the material is peer reveiwed as it is produced meaning it goes straight to market rather than have many months waiting for technical checks etc
Not just a win win situation but win win win win
I built programmes around an accredited management and leadershi
I ran 12 month graduate development programmes on a contract for many years at a major utility company.
Providing value to both organisation via serious financially verified projects and to the new employee by way a nationally recognised relevant qualification worked well.
This also enabled informed talent and potential spotting.
If you would like to know more contact me at [email protected]