With a new wave of college graduates entering the workforce over the next few weeks, employers should revisit their systems and procedures to create the most productive environments for their newest assets. Below are a few tips on how to engage and start growing your future from the first month of their career.
Perpetual Performance Review Not Annual
Gen Y needs more frequent and consistent feedback in order to feel involved and meaningful in their career. If your company is still stuck on annual or semi-annual reviews to go over job performance, then you may want to adapt some new systems. Frequent touches through email, text and phone can go a long way. Keep a file and start to track how frequently you are in contact with your newest team members around performance review. Also, have the young talent meet with their direct, (but non threatened) supervisor monthly to have a formal meeting on recognition, improvement areas and following through on the intra-month communication. Waiting six months for direct feedback will be an eternity for the next crop of graduating talent.
Assign an “Informal”Mentor
A casual mentor relationship, different from a formal supervisor, is another way to engage your new professionals in your culture. Assign a mentor who can grab coffee once a month with a new professional. The chats don’t have to be about business, but instead a more seasoned pro building a relationship in an informal way. Your new talent might open up and feel more comfortable to ask questions with this casual mentor versus their direct supervisor. It could also help if the mentor is in a different department than the young professional they are meeting with so the rookie can have more connections and ties to the company.
Early Bird Gets the C-suite
Depending on the size of your company, designate a day per month where a C level executive or the business owner will be at work two hours before normal operating time with a first come, first serve office hours. This will give ambitious, new talent the chance to beat their peers to the office and learn from company decision makers. If you operate in a larger business with too many rookies to conduct a 5:30am open office hours (nice problem to have!) then host a professional development seminar where only the first “x” amount of arrivals are let in to learn from and ask questions to a big timer.
Author Bio
Eddy Ricci, Jr., is the Author of The Growth Game: A Millennial’s Guide to Professional Development and Founder of The Growth Game, LLC a professional development company. He has been labeled as “the emerging expert in developing Gen Y sales professionals” by the chairman of Publicis Kaplan Thaler and is also noted as “understanding what motivates Gen Y sales teams. He is on my radar and should be on yours” by international speaker and NY Times bestselling author, Erik Qualman. Eddy serves as the director of a unique training and development collaborative platform that services financial planning firms in the northeast where he has arguably worked with more Gen Y financial professionals than anyone in the country over the past four years.www.thegrowthgame.com ; @thegrowthgame (recently created twitter).
“After You Frame Your Diploma, You Must Read Ricci’s The Growth Game!”- Ben Newman, international speaker, Professional Sports and Executive speaker, and best selling author
