Benchmarking
Firstly, it is widely accepted that Millenials have different desires and expectations to older generations in the workforce, so if it is even possible to drill into the data to get specific, graduate- only statistics, the questions being asked may not be graduate relevant. This is frequently the case with company-wide surveys so any analysis will almost certainly be missing the graduate subtext.
Secondly, and most importantly, if data is collected only in the silo of your company - without any external data to benchmark against - the data has no context and is thus almost impossible to interpret in the most valuable way.
To provide an illustrative example, one of our Benchmark Report clients in the property sector received an average rating of 7.2/10 from their graduates for the training on offer. This was their third
best rating out of the 14 areas of a scheme that we investigate, so on the first reading of the data, it looked like they were delivering well in this area. Once we benchmarked these scores against all the data from the property sector however, we could see that this was 13% below their sector competitors. We could also see that training is much more important to property graduates than it is to graduates in other sectors (more than 50% more property graduates cited it as one of the three most important factors in their careers compared to graduates across all sectors). This illustrated that training was actually a crucial area of underperformance for our client, and represented a key reason why their graduates might leave the company to join a competitor.
But what then? It is clear that data can be used to diagnose the problem areas within a scheme (and perhaps more
importantly, the relative problem areas compared to the competition), but we can also use it to fix the issues. By collecting data across several hundred companies, we can see which companies have the best offerings in each of the specific areas that we look at, and exactly what it is that they are doing which is being so well rated by their graduates. We can use this insight to take qualitative examples such as best practice case studies from these employers to enable our clients to learn how to improve that aspect of their scheme. For example, we were able to show our property client the best practice that they could use to improve their offering across seven key aspects of training - based on what the best rated employers in the training area do.
Data presents a huge opportunity for graduate employers to enhance development and improve employee engagement. And it pays off. >>>
Katy Chadder, Emerging Talent Associate Resourcing Manager, Skanska
Skanska has recently seen a rapid increase in the number of graduates being recruited; but it’s not only us, the need for graduates is increasing across the entire construction industry. This, alongside the struggle to fill specific roles, means that it is more important than ever to ensure that we have a leading graduate offering. In the past, we have held ideas as to where the key successes of the scheme lay, but also as to where the weaknesses may have been. This being said, we struggled to gather hard evidence to reinforce this and support any drive for change forward.
The Graduate Employee Benchmark Data has given us this evidence with an invaluable mix of quantitative and qualitative data, reinforcing those thoughts that we already had. It has provided us with a clear view of what is going on in our scheme and which areas we need to particularly focus on. We were delighted with our scores overall, with graduates scoring us highly on our Ethical and Environmental Concern, as well as the colleagues that they work with. Our values, ethics and culture here at Skanska are particularly important to us, so to know our graduate recruits appreciate that
so early in their career with us is hugely important. It was also really valuable for us to see that there were some key areas that we were falling behind on in comparison to our construction and civil engineering sector competitors – such as career progression and responsibility levels. This data was supported by the qualitative feedback given by graduates. For example, one graduate suggested introducing “an agreement on what I should have achieved in five years’ time”.
Since seeing this data, we have had the necessary statistics and evidence to start making changes to our graduate offering; It has kick started the process of Skanska reviewing all graduate offerings across the business. Alongside creating clear and consistent programmes for all of the different roles, we are also adding clarity to what happens next, to answer the question of what follows the Graduate Scheme. Not only are we improving those weaker points highlighted in the survey, but we are working hard to promote and maintain those areas which were highlighted as strengths.
www.agr.org.uk | Graduate Recruiter 27
CASE STUDY
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