Human resource experts revealed at the CIPD annual conference that while apprentices and graduates are showing an increased amount of loyalty to their career, they are not showing the same loyalty to their companies.
Graduate recruitment and development manager at L’Oreal UK&I, Negin Cooper, said that while company loyalty might be decreasing this isn’t a reason to “get lazy” with talent programmes. Cooper explained that there has been a total shift in graduate behaviour over the course of the last year. Young people are taking their time to consider their options, so schemes really have to be worth their time. L’Oreal, for example, said that it is relying on the new blood in the labour market to “challenge the status quo”.
For L’Oreal, the goal is to gain another one billion customers by year 2020. Graduates are at the forefront of the L’Oreal audience, so the company would be doing itself a disservice if they weren’t taking advantage of this new workforce that will double as a built-in focus group.
Other companies aren’t as lucky though. UK missiles manufacturer, MBDA has had a skills shortage forcing the organisation to take on apprentices every year for 20 years. HR director for MBDA, Aileen Randhawa, said the average age of an employee at MBDA is 45 years and the average tenure is 27 years. At this point in time, approximately three quarters of the MBDA workforce is retiring in the next 15 years, making it imperative that the company invest in apprentice programmes. The MBDA apprenticeship scheme is four years long but includes extensive training packages and full employment from the start.
For companies like MBDA it is more important to foster the relationship between the company and a new employee, so they are motivated to stay.
Both L’Oreal and MBDA agree that it is quite hard to attract new recruits. L’Oreal tries to combat the struggle by holding “lock-ins” where representatives visit universities and host a session on skills.
While both companies work very hard to maintain their employees, data still shows that one in four young people leave a company after the end of a scheme. This leaves many HR experts wondering if it is really worth the time and money companies are pumping into these recruitment and training programmes.
