We need graduates who actively create their own career opportunities” – Alex Bush, NHS
Problem
“We take on up to 220 graduates every year, both for general management and specialist careers, with a clear remit to develop the future leaders of the National Health Service. After a 2+ year scheme, graduates find roles in any of the 492 organisations that make up the NHS. To ensure a good return on the investment of taxpayers’ money, we had to equip NHS graduates with the skills to be self-reliant in driving fast-track careers once they have left the scheme.
Approach
Talent & Potential were quick to understand the unique nature of the challenge facing the NHS and combined this with their high level expertise in ‘career management’, which together proved a winning combination in a supplier. We engaged T&P initially to run a customized version of the Drive Your Career 1-day workshop halfway through the scheme, to get graduates actively making use of the contacts and opportunities presented by their scheme, and building a reputation that would deliver job opportunities at the end. We also asked T&P to design Regional Career Conferences for the end of the scheme, timed to give support at the moment graduates were actively starting to job hunt for their permanent roles.
We are now working with T&P on what we can to to equip graduates with high-flier attitudes and behaviours from the start, using the Graduate Success card packs at welcome and induction events. The bite-size nature of the card packs is designed to appeal to Gen Y graduates, and the content is based on research into the behaviours of graduates who turned out to be most successful 3-7 years on.
Results
The Drive Your Career workshops achieved 98% Excellent or Good ratings, and have resulted in measurable behaviour shifts towards using behaviours typical of people with fast track careers. The Career Conferences achieved ratings of 94% Excellent or Good ratings.
Our view
T&P have undoubtedly added value. We definitely benefit from trainees interacting with external consultants from outside the NHS, who have had fast track careers themselves, and who the trainees perceive to be ‘objective’ in their advice. Trainees have responded really well to T&P’s evidence-based research with fast trackers and high performing graduates – T&P are onto a real winner here, with the amount of robust research they do and how they translate that into practical help. Designing the Career Conferences to combine this expertise with inputs from the graduate team, NHS guests, and recent alumni to provide NHS knowledge, has meant that trainees benefit from an extremely powerful partnership. Trainees are definitely more active in managing their careers as a result. You can see and feel strong evidence of a new approach to managing their careers in the NHS.”
