As the talent pool of graduates continues to grow, it’s becoming more challenging than ever to attract and retain top graduate talent. With such stiff competition, many employers have had to rethink their strategies for how to retain graduate employees.
Let’s start by looking at why retraining graduate employees is so critical.
Why Retaining Graduate Employees Matters
Employee turnover is costly. Each time an employee leaves your business, they take valuable knowledge and skills with them. Not to mention the costs associated with recruiting, onboarding, and training a replacement team member. As such, human resources teams across the UK are constantly coming up with new strategies to keep turnover down and stay competitive.
Employing a solid graduate retention strategy is particularly important because graduates represent the future of the business. Today’s graduate employees are tomorrow’s leaders. What’s more, they have untapped potential and access to a new, younger demographic.
A recent Deloitte survey found that 48% of Gen Zers are under constant stress caused by job and career prospects. This tells us that more can be done to support Gen Z employees and make them feel valued. As the Millennials and Gen Zers become the main bulk of the workforce, it’s time for organizations to amp up their retention efforts.
How To Retain Graduate Employees: What Do Graduates Want?
The first step in retaining graduate employees is knowing what motivates and inspires them. Gen Z graduates have grown up in a different environment and, therefore, are likely to have different professional needs, expectations, and aspirations.
The Bright Network carries out annual research, interviewing over 14,000 students and graduates from 159 UK universities. The latest results found that graduate employees want 3 key things from an employer:
1. Social Mobility
Our social status has a huge impact on many aspects of our lives. For instance, whether we attend a private or state university. 41% of state-educated university students think they will land a graduate role. By contrast, 60% of graduates who attended private school think they will secure a graduate job after university.
Similarly, privately educated graduates are much more likely to do an internship than state school students, who generally work part-time jobs during university.
Employers should take these social factors into consideration during the hiring process. For example, by assessing transferable skills from all types of work experience. In addition, employers should place less importance on prestigious internships, recognising that some may have been obtained through family connections.
It’s not enough to just rethink the hiring criteria during the selection process. Many talented graduates may not even dare to apply for certain positions because they assume they need specific industry qualifications, such as a reputable internship. Therefore, employers should make a conscious effort to be transparent about the competencies, values, and life experiences they value.
2. More Transparency in What They Are Looking For
Bright network’s research highlighted a large disparity between what graduates think employers are looking for versus what employers are actually looking for. This lack of transparency can be detrimental to attracting and retaining top graduate talent.
Firstly, some candidates will bow out of the race without even applying. More importantly, other graduates will enter the company with misinformed ideas of what the business values. The Bright Network report picked up on 2 core areas where there is a significant disconnect.
Resilience:
Employers ranked resilience as the 2nd most important attribute a graduate employee can possess. However, graduates didn’t consider it to be a quality that employers desire. As a result, many students and graduates don’t prioritise building resilience and will struggle to demonstrate examples of resilience during the interview process.
Once hired, graduates may not be prepared for certain workplace situations because they have not placed enough emphasis on this area of their professional development.
Industry Experience/Qualifications:
Most graduates think that having existing industry experience or a 2.1 in their Bachelor’s degree is the main deciding factor for employers. However, employers claim they value passion, problem-solving, and communication skills above experience or qualifications.
The bottom line is that in order to attract and retain graduate employees, businesses should focus on being more transparent about the competencies they’re looking for. In doing so, they will tap into a much larger and more diverse talent pool who have clear expectations of what the company wants.
3. Flexibility
Bright network’s report also indicated that graduates want flexible working options and remote working. As the world goes digital, the next generation of graduates expects virtual internships and remote graduate jobs. Thus, employers need to adapt their working options to reflect this shift in mentality and accommodate graduate workers.
On top of the factors mentioned above, graduates tend to consider the following criteria when choosing an employer:
- Are there development opportunities for me to progress?
- Is the compensation package good?
- Are there benefits or perks, such as a company car?
- What kinds of projects will I be working on?
- What is the company culture like?
It all boils down to how valued, motivated, and included graduates feel in an organisation. Nail this, and your graduate retention strategy is sure to be a success.
For advice on attracting graduates to your business, check out our dedicated guide.
How To Retain Graduate Employees: Strategies That Work
While many companies implement strong graduate recruitment initiatives to attract talent, they tend to run out of steam once the hiring process is complete. This is a mistake for a number of reasons. Attracting top graduates is just the first step. Retaining them is another story.
A proper retention strategy prevents your best new hires from being poached by the competition or moving to another company. Plus, it empowers them to grow, develop, and continue to add value to the business.
To help you keep graduates in your business, we’ve put together a few failsafe retention strategies.
Focus on Employee Engagement
It’s no surprise that engaged employees stick around longer. Therefore, employers should prioritise employee engagement and provide meaningful work for graduate employees. This can be achieved in a number of ways:
- Regular 1-to-1 feedback meetings to discuss performance and future goals
- Continuous training to upskill and cross-train
- Opportunities for personal growth, such as shadowing programmes
- Networking opportunities both internally and externally to build a strong professional network
- Regular social events to foster a strong sense of community
- Inclusive workplace practices
- Invest in technology to streamline workplace tasks
Build a Mentorship Programme
A whopping 49% of Gen Z want to quit their jobs. With such an alarmingly high number of recent graduates feeling unhappy at work, it may be time to implement a mentoring scheme.
Gen Zers cited poor compensation, a lack of career progression, and not enough learning and development opportunities as the main culprits for their discontent. As such, investing in a coaching programme could be just the thing to get graduates engaged again. On top of retaining graduates for longer, mentoring schemes create more confident and capable employees with the skills to be a leader.
In a nutshell, mentoring boosts job satisfaction and creates opportunities for both personal and professional development.
Rethink Your Benefits Scheme
From global pandemics to financial crises, current graduates have more to worry about than previous generations. As a result, the benefits employers offer could entice graduates to stay in the company.
Benefits such as a solid pension plan, health and wellbeing initiatives, flexible working, and childcare support give graduates that extra peace of mind.
Foster a Great Company Culture
Your company culture plays a huge role in retaining your best employees. Toxic work cultures aren’t only bad for our health, they are expensive too. Every time an employee leaves your organization because of the culture, your business pays the price. By contrast, great company culture is one of your biggest secret weapons when retaining graduates. When employees feel happy at work, they are more productive, innovative, and loyal to your business. It’s a win-win!
So, if you want to keep graduates in your business long-term, it’s time to analyse your workplace culture. Are you doing enough to promote a healthy work-life balance? What steps are you taking to make the workplace more diverse and inclusive? Creating a safe culture that embraces feedback and gives recognition will do wonders for your employee retention stats.
Final Thoughts
We hope this guide has given your some actionable advice on how to retain graduate employees. Keeping graduate talent in your company is not only good for the bottom line, but it also future-proofs your business. Graduates have a wide range of skills, life experiences, and fresh ideas that can value your organization and give you insight into a new audience. As such, developing a solid graduate employee retention strategy is imperative.
Developing a Student is packed with guides for employers, including advice on attracting graduates and building an inclusive work environment. Get in touch to advertise your roles on our dedicated jobs board.
