Organisations are struggling to retain a new breed of impatient, easily-bored and money-driven graduates, according to a new survey. Employee engagement specialist TalentDrain questioned 1,749 graduates below the age of 31 and found they were hungry for a better salary and prone to leave their jobs in frustration, due to a lack of promotion opportunities, a sense that their reward was not linked to their performance or insufficiently challenging work.
"Graduates want challenge and advancement and they'll vote with their feet if their organisation can't deliver," said Ron Eldridge, director of TalentDrain. "Retaining graduates is an art and if employers don't want to lose their high flyers to their competitors, they have to become better skilled at this art."
The research shows that graduates place high value on personal growth, job satisfaction, their salary, their relationship with their boss and career progression, but
demographic differences, such as gender, make the issue of retaining graduates more complicated. Salary and career progression are more important to males, while personal growth, job satisfaction and the relationship with their boss are more important to females.
Personal growth, career progression and independence are valued most by graduates in managerial or professional roles, while job satisfaction and the relationship with their boss are valued most by graduates in sales, customer service and administrative roles.
"Graduates will leave if there is a mismatch between their personal priorities and the organisational environment," says Eldridge. "But much can be done to reduce graduate turnover." He recommends that organisations should 'begin at the beginning' by re-examining how they seduce and attract graduates.
At the risk of sounding like an old grump, I can't help asking why, given the current economic climate and the availability of qualified, experienced workers, employers are still bending over backwards to satisfy graduates' demands. Better to employ staff whose loyalty isn't dependent on their every whim being met.
