Best Practice Graduate Development Strategies

In a four part series, the team at DBL have put together a comprehensive how-to guide for best practice graduate development. Although by no means exhaustive, the series is a great resource and useful ‘how-to’ for graduate managers both new to the industry, and for veterans looking for new or fresh ideas to enhance their existing program, enjoy!

Regards,

The DBL Team

Part 1 – Equipping Your Leaders

If there is one thing that makes a difference in creating an awesome experience for graduates, it is the quality of leaders that they get exposed to and form strong relationships with. The same can be said for the graduates we work with in our training programs. Given that 10% of learning happens in the classroom, 20% through coaching and mentoring and 70% on the job, this is no surprise. It is fair to say your leaders heavily influence up to 90% of your graduate’s development. That’s huge! Often manager ‘briefing sessions’ in January and February are heavily relied on to equip managers to play the crucial role they play in graduate development programs. But they’re not enough.

Partnering with numerous graduate development programs across an array of industries and employers, we have helped many employers embrace this very challenge.

Here are five cost-effective ways you can help your leaders realise the crucial role they play, and equip them to play it well.

1) Refresh your leaders on leading and managing Generation Y

Approaching the height of the global downturn in late 2008, 61% of CEOs reported having enormous difficulty in attracting and retaining Generation Y graduates (“Millennials at work: Perspectives from a new generation” PwC). In what's now widely being termed the "two speed economy" here in Australia, your leader’s ability to lead and manage Generation Y will again play a huge role in attracting, developing and retaining your best graduates. Consider delivering cost-effective presentations, half day workshops or online training modules to rotation managers and business unit leaders, as refresher courses on what it takes to get the most from Gen Y graduates.

2) Train grads and leaders on building relationships with each other

97% of Gen Y respondents value a leadership style that involves empowerment, consultation and partnership and would leave if they did not get it. In fact, 42% of Generation Y respondents reported that poor leadership and management was the main reason for leaving their previous role. (Mark McCrindle; The ABC of XYZ – Understanding Global Generations). Lay the foundations for strong relationships between graduates and their coaches, mentors and leaders by bringing them together. Deliver workshops where both groups attend, and use good behavioural profiling tools (such as DiSC, LSI or PerformanSe) to help them build a better understanding of how they communicate and work together, and place equal responsibility on both the graduate and the leader to make it happen. Focus on setting clear expectations, communication channels and review mechanisms. This is a powerful, relevant and short session for induction or within the first 90 days of your graduate program.

3) Coaches and Mentors - allocation by design

From 4,271 Generation Y graduates across 44 countries, 98% of respondents rated access to strong mentors as very important (“Millennials at work: Perspectives from a new generation” PwC). Think carefully about the structure of your support network for graduates. To have buddies, line managers, coaches, mentors, graduate liaisons and graduate managers is great so long as there is a clear structure, roles and responsibilities for all involved. Think deliberately about how you allocate coaches and mentors to ensure the appropriate match that will both support and challenge each graduate to grow.

4) Structured coffee coaching

In designing your graduate development program, build in 20-30 min coffee coaching meetings between graduates and their line managers immediately following development interventions such as workshops. The focus should be to review the 3 things the graduate will apply back in the business. Do the same in the week or so leading up to the next development intervention to prepare. It won’t happen every time for every graduate, but even if there was a 20% increase in the frequency of these catch-ups, you will increase the return on your program back in the business. Communicate it up front to grads and their managers and re-iterate it throughout the program as an important strategy.

5) Expose, Expose, Expose

Use every development intervention in your graduate development program as an opportunity to expose your grads to your leaders, and your leaders to your grads. Consider how you might build time in to each workshop or event to achieve this and get creative – don’t just rely on a formal CEO address during induction! How can you design face-time between leaders and grads during workshops? How can you use case studies of your leaders within your program content? How can you design practical activities, such as business case projects, that require grads to meet and interact with leaders? Expose, expose, expose!

We’ve all heard the phrase “don’t judge a book by its cover”, and how that relates to meeting someone for the first time. Our parents teach us this from a young age; it gets reinforced when you’re at school and then as a teenager you begin to learn yourself, sometimes the hard way.

Then there’s reality. Unfortunately “judging a book by it’s cover” is exactly what we do, especially when meeting someone for the first time. Everyone you will ever meet is programmed to make a judgment about you within the first 10-15 seconds. This stems from thousands of years of human evolution, and weighing up whether or not a new face is going to be a threat to us or not.

Thankfully it’s not 10,000BC anymore, it’s 2012 and instead of clashing with warring tribes, you’re more likely to me out mingling with prospective new employers, colleagues, peers and other university graduates. It’s incredibly important that when you meet someone for the first time, they walk away thinking, “that guy/girl really impressed me!”

So here are some tips and ideas that I’ve learnt in my combined 12 years from being a graduate in a large firm, to building a million dollar training business and working in the graduate and leadership development industry. They’re based on a model I like to call the ‘First Impression Triad’ which consists of 3 points:

-       Focus

-       Conversation

-       Body Language

Focus

Focus more on the other person, than on yourself. If you’re nervous when meeting new people, you’re too focused on yourself. If you’re confident meeting new people and talk so much the other person barely gets a word in, you’re also focused too focused on yourself. Stop thinking about you and start thinking about the other person. Focus on them.

So, when meeting someone for the first time, are you thinking about him or her; or thinking about yourself? Why is this important you ask? Think about it, how would you feel meeting someone for the first time and it’s obvious that all they’re interested in talking about is themselves…you wouldn’t leave with an overly positive impression of him or her would you? Focus more on the other person, than on yourself and not only will you be more engaging, you will find yourself feeling more relaxed as well.

Conversations

Think more about asking good questions, than trying to think of good things to say.

For many, conversations with new people are often hard, but once mastered, can really have a massive impact. The reason it’s hard is that because as people, we are all different; there are those of us that are naturally more confident and outgoing, and there are those of us that not as confident, and meeting/talking to new people takes us out of our comfort zone. By asking good questions, you can leave your new acquaintance with a fantastic first impression that they will remember, no matter if you are outgoing, or not! For all of you who are confident and outgoing, being able to control your natural tendency to just ‘talk’ will go a long way to building a lasting impression as well.

There are some easy to remember topics that are socially and professionally accepted when meeting new people. Depending on the specific situation, Family, Occupation and Recreation can all be good areas to ask questions around. Have conversations through asking good questions, and be genuinely interested in the other person.

Body Language

93% of the first impression you make has next to nothing to do with ‘what’ you say. Body language is one of those things that when done right has a make or break impact on the your impression. Research suggests that up to 55% of everything we communicate is through body language, with a further 38% determined by ‘how’ you say what you say, not ‘what’ you say.

Stand up straight with your shoulders back a little, chin level, give a genuine smile, make good eye contact and offer a firm handshake. And no, that doesn’t mean try and squeeze the life out of whoever’s hand you’re shaking! The simple things in life are often the best when it comes to making an awesome first impression.

For further information on preparing yourself for your professional career and other tips and suggestions, head to The Graduate Edge Facebook and check it out. Good luck!

Did you ever know that you’re my hero,
and everything I would like to be?
I can fly higher than an eagle,
’cause you are the wind beneath my wings.

from “Wind Beneath My Wings” by Jeff Silbar and Larry Henley, 1982.