Trainee Programmes and Graduate Development Programmes

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Manager Blue

Manager Blue has had the position as Programme Manager for the trainee programme since October 2015 and refers himself as “quite new to the company” (Manager Blue, personal communication, 2016-03-07). Manager Blue has ten years experience with HR as main area; Manager Blue discusses that he has been working internationally for several years, which has given him a broad and differentiated experience from a manager’s point of view. He is responsible for the overall structure and design of the programme as well as understanding how the company can create value, and benefit from delivering the trainee programme. When asked, Manager Blue acknowledges himself to know a lot about Talent Management and “…could speak for hours about the topic” (Manager Blue, personal communication, 2016-03-07).
Manager Blue emphasise that for any organisation, Talent Management always starts with strategy and the market. According to him, Talent Management is the processes and tools, organisations use to develop the talents with typical capabilities related to talent. It does not only emphasise recruitment, you need to understand the talents needs as well as what the company require in order to succeed with their strategy. Company Blue consider Talent Management to be a complex and comprehensive concept, however it is considered an important mind-set in order to target the market and external talents to succeed with the company strategy. In general, Company Blue defines Talent Management as “Access to the right people, with the right skills, at the right time, in the right form” (Manager Blue, personal communication, 2016-03-07). When asking about Talent Retention in the organisation, Manager Blue argues that the concept is tricky and includes several different processes. When working with retention, Company Blue puts most emphasis on the leaders and the engagement that the leaders create; they have guidelines, work with performance management systems and have different processes for retention. However, there is no specific retention plan and it all comes down to the leadership culture as well as to the process of analysing how the talents perform and develop. Moreover, Company Blue does not consider themselves having a problem with retention and claim that they have a good retention rate.
Manager Blue describes a talent to be someone with consistent high performance, who has the potential for high complexity and thereby achieves increased responsibility. More specifically, at Company Blue, one becomes defined as a talent when delivering results above targets two years in a row and has the individual mind-set to want to know, learn and stretch themselves.
Manager Blue is aware of who the generation Millennials are, however not about any specifics. Millennials orient themselves differently from the market; they want to be developed, challenged and respected. They stress the importance of development of the programme, adding more interaction between the trainees and other employees. Manager Blue knows that they are a generation of people who wants to make an impact on the business, be challenged and respected.
The trainee programme at Company Blue is a two-year programme, founded in 2001, with the purpose to ensure a future sustainable pipeline of talents. According to Manager Blue, this is achieved through two approaches, either to buy talents from the market or to grow into the market. Company Blue has decided to meet the future needs by taking high-potential students and developing them into young professionals. Moreover, the trainee programme has different profiles, such as finance and IT and even though the company operates in several countries the programme is only conducted in Norway, Sweden and Denmark; each year, around 160 graduates are accepted with a vast majority of Nordic students.
With the programme’s on-going development, Company Blue has matured their thinking of what value it should bring. They are continuously making both internal and external changes, keeping the ever-changing environment in mind. For instance, today, the programme has less seminars than in the beginning and instead more in-action and reality-related work. Additionally, Manager Blue tells us that there is less lecturing and more interaction and integrative work, resulting in challenges and instant feedback. In addition, the programme has developed in accordance with the requests from the generation Millennials, however, the changes are not directly nor specifically related to the generation and this is more of a coincidence.
To be accepted to the programme, in addition to the basic requirements such as having a Master’s degree, English language skills and passing an ability test, Company Blue also have a grade minimum. However, Manager Blue mentions that a good student does not have to make a good employee or a talent professional. Since the recruits are students, they do not have much experience and thereby it is important to assess people’s potential and learning abilities. People who are ambitious, can cope with change and work in teams are desired for the trainee programme at Company Blue, in order for the talents to be a part of the corporate culture. Being accepted to the trainee programme at Company Blue means that you are openly employed; there is no time limitation and the trainee programme offers you job experiences from day one. At Company Blue there is no rotation around the company; the trainee is instead positioned as an employee at the company, guided with seminars, mentors and training, whilst working at a specific position. Thus, the trainees are promised an employment, and given the opportunity for self-development.
At the end of year one in the trainee programme at Company Blue, the trainees are given mentors. Manager Blue emphasises the importance of feedback; that it is critical and crucial for everyone, both to receive it and to give it in a good way in order to achieve the greatest benefits, also when it comes to the mentors helping their trainees to develop and for the trainees to understand what they want to improve. This is an area for adjustments and improvements, according to Manager Blue; to come up with a more structured way to conduct the mentorship and to give feedback is both important for the involved in the trainee programme and for future development of leaders within the company. Furthermore, during the trainee programme the trainees have the responsibility to first and foremost perform in accordance with their job-tasks’ targets and actively participate in their seminars, and they are also asked to participate in employer branding activities.

READ Understanding Decision-making Under Risk and Delay

1. Introduction
1.1 Background
1.2 Problem
1.3 Purpose
1.4 Delimitations
1.5 Definitions
1.5.1 Talent Management
1.5.2 Talent Retention
1.5.3 Talent
1.5.4 Millennials
1.5.5 Trainee Programmes and Graduate Development Programmes
1.5.6 Psychological Ownership
2. Frame of reference .
2.1 Talent Management
2.2 Talent Retention
2.3 Talent
2.4 Millennial talents .
2.6 Psychological Ownership
2.7 Reflection on literature review
3. Method and Data collection
3.1.2 Research approaches
3.2 Research Method
3.2.1 Case study
3.2.2 Single and multiple case studies
3.2.3 Interviews
3.2.4 Question formulation
3.3 Data Collection
3.4 Quality Criteria
3.5 Method of Analysis
4. Empirical findings
4.1 Company Blue
4.1.1 Manager Blue
4.1.2 BlueA .
4.1.3 BlueB
4.1.4 BlueC
4.2 Company Red
4.3 Cross-case Analysis of Empirical Findings
5. Analysis
5.1 Working with Talent Retention
5.2 The importance of good leadership
5.3 Organisational belonging and commitment
5.4 Factors leading to retention .
6. Conclusion
7. Discussion and recommendations for further research
References
Appendices