Graduate positions are professional development roles which have been structured specifically in order to cater for new or recent graduates. Students generally begin these roles straight after the conclusion of their last year of study, although most programs will allow students to be eligible for the positions providing they have completed their degree within the last two years prior to applying. A graduate program has many benefits for graduates including a very supportive environment and the chance to work in a wide variety of different positions on a rotational schedule, an emphasis on development and learning and on the job training and mentoring. Graduate programs can run from anything from one year to three years and can incorporate either fixed or rational roles within a specific department. Graduate roles may only have entry level responsibilities but graduates are nonetheless expected to play a major role within the department or team of which they are a part and possibly even manage some very important projects. Whether you turn out to be the only graduate in the organisation, or are a part of a large program with dozens of other graduates, the valuable skills that will be developed during your time in a graduate position will be of great worth to carry you through the whole rest of your career, challenging you to think fast in a whole range of disparate professional environments.

Alternatively, graduates can choose to become involved with volunteering. Volunteers make a valuable contribution to society in general and volunteering allows graduates to develop new skills, while engaging with a new cause or group, boosting your confidence, meeting new people and enhancing your employability in the process. Voluntary work can be part time or casual work or just very short term, intensive projects. Volunteering increases your communication skills, your ability to prioritise and your ability to function either autonomously or as a part of a team. Commitment, energy and motivation are all requirements of being a volunteer and employers are well aware of this, meaning that any applicants for positions who have volunteer work on their resumes will be looked on in the most favourable manner, while a strong reference letter or enthusiastic referee will also be a big help when it comes to enhancing your future prospects for employment.

These are all useful tools to bring out of the toolkit to use as levers in implementing successful change management.

There’s a strong link between a well thought out talent management strategy and increased customer satisfaction, quality, revenue and productivity.

Talent management means different things to different organisations. To some it’s about managing high worth individuals, to others it’s assuming that all people in the organisation have talent which needs to be managed. No matter which one it is, your organisation needs to think carefully about how to attract, retain and develop talent.

We think talent management is also an important component of any change strategy. We’ll work with your leaders to integrate plans and processes to track and manage your talent including:

• Identifying training and development opportunities
• Linking into performance management processes
• Linking to or developing promotion, retention and transitioning programs.

So does your organisation have a clear talent management strategy?

• Set clear and significant stretch goals
• Use a range of tactics to engage staff as early as possible
• Engage in large scale collaboration across the organisation
• Ensure communication is as clear and effective as possible with focus on building on successes not just fixing problems
• Spend a lot of time engaging frontline employees to take ownership (the time will not be wasted)
• Engage employees through ongoing communication and involvement.

Is your organisation on the right track?

• Identify the strategic objective for your change (the Why)
• Work out who your stakeholders are (the Who)
• Identify the impacts to your organisation (the What)
• Work out  the change enablers (the How) – leadership, training and education,  communication and performance management

Use your preferred change theories, models and tools to help inform your thinking about the change.

I highly recommend the ACCM’s ‘Fundamentals of Change’ course. For more information see http://www.changemanagement.edu.au/

Gray gave an enlightening and insightful perspective on how to help clients who are stuck in their career. The key takeouts for me were:

• The starting point is different for each person at a career crossroad
• Using the right language is essential for engagement and a sense of hope. For example, Gray brainstormed the group’s perspectives on the words craft (freedom and creativity) and management (structure and control).
• It’s a change in perspective between managing and crafting a career
• Knowing where you are is a first step in knowing where you could be when crafting your career
• The seven positioning perspectives in Gray’s Career Positioning System are – Balance, Recognition, Boundaries, Direction, Duration, Risk and Match. For example, what sort of risk taker are you? What are your career fears?

Gray’s holistic, flexible and creative approach to crafting a career had a big impact .

There is a real business case for diversity – greater levels of gender diversity at the most senior levels is correlated with stronger corporate performance. Following are some areas for you organisations to consider to start increasing their gender equity:

• Do an audit to identify barriers to achieving gender equity in your organisation
• Develop a strategy for increasing gender equity then implement it – this includes influencing key stakeholders, allocating budget and introducing more flexible work arrangements (not just for women)
• Redesign jobs for gender equity.

Call us today on 0410 694 770  to discuss how we can help develop flexible career pathways for your organisation aligned the role and skill requirements.

How do you rate your employability?

Career development does matter for both organisations and individuals. It is cheaper and more effective for organisations to grow and retain their own talent. Decreased job satisfaction is the largest factor in voluntary turnover.

Career development is part of life-long learning and it makes sense for organisations to partner with employees to align their strengths and aspiration goals to the organisational goals and direction.

Your organisation can reap the benefits of high engagement scores, retaining talent and reducing turnover by implementing career development services and programs.

It’s a wise organisation that puts a strategy in place to:

• Help employees to manage their own careers aligned to business priorities and manage the tensions embedded in this concept
• Help employees to select vertical and/or horizontal pathways
• Help retain the most capable employees.

Career development needs to be a win/win for both employees and employers. The key is to align the employee interests and skills to your organisational strategy.