Why you should manage graduates differently

Posted by Anne Hamill

When I ask people about performance management for their graduates, people often tell me “Oh, the same way as we do our other members of staff”. In practice, this usually means assessing how well objectives have been met; and using the company’s standard competency framework.

I hold pretty strong views on performance management, when it comes to graduates – especially if they are on a rotational scheme. If you use the normal corporate process, you could be wasting your chance to shape this key early talent into high fliers.

This is because graduates on schemes are not ordinary members of staff.

• You’ve invested more in them; and you need to manage them as a group for whom you have high ambitions. Based on AGR figures, the investment into graduates is at least £80K and in the region of £150K for rotational graduates, and up to £250K for global. You invest in marketing, recruitment and selection. You invest in a graduate team. You pay a premium on salaries and increments. Yet on rotational schemes, graduates never become experienced workers because every 6 months they start a new learning curve.
  
  
• Graduates on rotation schemes require skills to succeed that are completely unlike those in a permanent role. No one else in the company moves every 6 months over 2 years. No one else has these primary objectives: to fit in and get off the ground fast; pick up a high level knowledge of different aspects of the business; find ways to add value in a short timeframe; build a network, and use that network to accelerate their career.
  
  
• Because they are frequently moving on, graduates’ objectives can be completely different to those of other staff. Managers may set objectives based on ‘nice to have’ projects – and these can be lacking in stretch. You need a performance management system that tracks objective setting, and makes managers accountable for the level of challenge. Otherwise, graduates can become very frustrated about peers who are rated higher on easier objectives.
  
  
• Graduates (including direct-to-role graduates) also differ from other members of staff in that they are highly selected, often ambitious and expect to succeed due to their track record of success. But they are also completely unprepared for the ambiguous, constantly changing, multiple stakeholder world of work. Performance management is the most powerful tool you have to shape everyone’s behaviour towards that of a high flier.

The best argument for graduate-specific performance management lies in its impact. We helped one company introduce a graduate-specific performance management scheme based on our hard research into graduate high fliers. Result: the next year, the company shot up 12 places to 2nd place in the Jobcrowd rankings – anonymous ratings of how graduates like their scheme. In particular, the level of challenge their graduates experienced increased dramatically – by 16%. Overall ratings of performance went from a dramatically skewed distribution (60% of graduates received the top rating, and nearly 40% the second rating on a 5 point system) to a more normal distribution that allowed targeted help to be given to anyone who was slipping behind.

I’m personally very excited about how the research on long-term graduate high performance could be woven into performance management systems and manager training that delivers more high fliers. Watch this space for our ideas on how to get line managers aligned in the drive to consistently shape the attitudes and behaviours of your early talent!