01/09/2011 Managing new graduates

Graduates today are seeing a tougher recruitment environment than there has been for years. This being said, however, this month will still see tens of thousands of new individuals entering the workforce for the first time.

Yet, what will greet them? And will their expectations marry up with the reality of the modern-day corporation?

I have a feeling that for many people, the answer will be no. Why? Because today’s graduates are entering the workforce with higher expectations than any previous generation.  They expect to be doing challenging work from the start, having a clear understanding of how their career is mapping out in front of them, and also expect the kind of work life balance that their fathers and grandfathers never enjoyed.

And they are unlikely to put up with any drop below these expectations for long. According to a recent report by the Institute of Leadership & Management (ILM), over half of graduates intend to leave their current role in the next two years and four in ten graduates are not satisfied with their career advancement in their current organisations.

The research also found that, of the 1,900 graduates surveyed, more than half expected to be promoted to a management role within three years of starting work. Tellingly, one third of managers said that the greatest challenge when working with graduates was managing their expectations.

So what does these mean for employees and their current development programmes?

It clearly means that there is a potential disconnect between employer and employee expectations which needs to be better managed on both sides.

How can this be achieved?

While there are a myriad of other issues, for me the most important factor is a clear, transparent and open dialogue between employer and employee and a clearly structured development and L&D process.

Such a process should be able to diagnose individuals’ skills and potential skills gaps, highlight how they stack up against the company’s corporate objectives, and then form the basis for a clear development path for every individual with key milestones along the way. In that way, all graduates know – for better or for worse – where they fit within their organisations and what they need to do and improve upon to progress

It’s not rocket science and it forms the basis of any successful talent management programme, but you’d be surprised how often it can be neglected.

There are always going to be graduates who become disillusioned quickly and look elsewhere. However, transparent and honest feedback and a clear progression path can go a long way to ensuring that expectations aren’t as significantly out of sync as was previously the case.