It’s never too late to create a development program for your graduates!

The start of every year sees thousands of graduates take up their positions on Graduate Programs. The most common question Graduate Managers ask at this time of the year is - “Is it too late to put together a development program for our Grads?”

You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to work out our answer to this question – an emphatic “NO!”

The reasons for creating a comprehensive development program have been outlined extensively in previous articles.

Conducting development programs within a short timeframe of your graduates commencing is of great benefit to both graduates and the organisation. Over the next few articles, we will explore some of the compelling reasons to develop your graduates using a tailored development program.

The Crucial First 3 Months

Feedback from graduate participants attending development programs usually revolves around how supported they felt with the skills and tools gained from the workshops upon commencement.

Many graduates are actually unaware of what is expected and required in the workplace when they first commence and transition from University to Corporate life;

• What are the cultural norms?
• How do we communicate?
• What is expected of me?

These questions seem quite basic and intuitive once you have been in the workforce for a couple of years however, for graduates, these are areas of great concern.

As an example, let’s explore something simple like email etiquette. There is often an assumption from organisations that because email is an electronic form of communication graduates will obviously know how to use it well. It might be surprising to learn that email is actually not used much at all by today’s graduates. In fact, email is the fourth most preferred method of communication behind social networking sites, SMS, phone, and (in some instances) face to face communication. If you take in to consideration how different the content of business emails are to the content of their preferred communication styles (informal, abbreviations, symbols) you can easily see how business emails sit outside their comfort zone.

From an organisational perspective, emails are one of the most commonly used and important forms of communication. Given this, it is vital that graduates are given an understanding of exactly what is required from them when composing emails.

This is just one example of how graduates need to be supported in their transition to corporate life.

Other examples include;

• business etiquette
• telephone skills
• dress standards
• networking
• time management

Leaving graduates to their own devices to ‘work it out’ can result in;

• lost productivity
• damaged relationships
• frustration for managers
• frustration for graduates

Addressing these potential issues ensures graduates are able to hit the ground running, contribute to organisational success faster and mitigate risks.

Developing the right content for a graduate development program is only the beginning of an effective learning and development strategy. The formal and informal learning environment graduates have grown up in is vastly different to the environment of any other generation. It is vitally important to ensure the delivery methodology takes this in to account to ensure the most effective transferral of learning to create a graduate focused learning culture.

In the next quarters edition of Fuse, we will look at the three to six month period and the importance of developing graduates in the key areas of;

• personal effectiveness through effective time management
• managing self though change by building resilience

To answer the question “Is it too late to create a development program for our graduates?” the answer is definitely NO. What graduate managers and organisations need to be aware of is the closer to commencement (first 3- 6 months) that programs commence the sooner the rewards in transitioning your graduates will be evident.

Whether you have a large or small graduate intake, Fusion understands what it takes to conduct effective learning interventions for graduates. For organisations with larger graduate intakes we are able to tailor solutions to meet your developmental and budgetary requirements. For organisations with a smaller graduate intake (1-7) we are able to offer our comprehensive and innovative FusionGRAD program. We are also able to assist in developing managers to ensure a true graduate focussed learning culture.

For more information on how to add value to your graduate strategies please contact Fusion Graduate Management Solutions at info@fusiongms.com.au