Having worked with graduates for the past 12 years and run my own smaller, growing business for 7 of those years, I’ve developed strategies to get the best out of new graduates in the workplace. Here are my top 3 tips.
Set your graduate a mini project to work on in the first week, as well as all the induction and information sharing. This could be analysing some existing figures, researching a business area, producing some content for your website, learning a new skill. Then step back and watch how they approach the task. Do they write a plan, ask their colleagues for support, expect to be hand held, clarify what is needed, set their own timescales or ask you to do this for them? They way they approach the task will inform how you manage them as they grow within your business.
Check in regularly with your new hire. First thing, after lunch and at the end of the day. Ask them to tell you what they have planned for the day rather than you telling them what to do. If they have no plans, they need more guidance. If they deviate from their plans regularly, they will need more support in staying focused. If you can’t do it yourself, assign a buddy or team leader to work with them.
Don’t make assumptions that your new recruit knows what is expected of them. Remember you and your current team have been doing what you do for years or even decades. Your new graduate has only recently left education and may have limited knowledge of any workplace, let alone your workplace. Whenever you set a task ask yourself “do they know what is expected of them?”. This doesn’t mean that you have to micromanage and do all the telling. Explain the task, timescales and delivery expectations and ask them to tell you what they have understood is required of them.
Above all, be explicit about what you mean and ask your graduate to say in their own words what they have understood by it. This will very quickly highlight gaps in their training and skills that can often very easily be filled either by you personally taking responsibility for training them, or allowing you to delegate to your wider team to support them.
