Most organisations will be placing young graduates on development / internship programmes in their organisations at the beginning of 2010. These development programmes require huge financial investments which must provide a significant return on expectations i.e. feeding the talent pipeline.

Our employee engagement research indicated that these young employees are putting personal fulfillment ahead of company needs. Against the backdrop of the current economic conditions and in the context of limitations on job mobility, young employees are pressured to look for greater meaning in their work and ways to be more resourceful.

With an upturn in the economy, many employees with a strong sense of resourcefulness will feel more confident about finding other work, and will look for employment which is more meaningful to them.

Based on the above employee engagement research and experience in the learning & development field, the following 7 tactics to engage young graduates in organisations:

1. Develop a meaningful, structured development programme that will challenge these graduate recruits at emotional, intellectual and physical levels.
2. Build personal change resilience to assist graduate recruits to cope in today's complex organizational environment and resourcefulness to provide the recruits with the confidence and initiative to perform in these difficult times.
3. Conduct career conversations with graduate recruits to establish aspirations and possible career paths.
4. Assign both mentor and coach to each graduate or group of graduate recruits. The coach needs to be responsible for functional (job) development aspect and executive mentor for personal and organisational aspects of their careers.
5. Build capacity with these line managers on how they should manage these young recruits.
6. Involve graduate recruits in select senior management conferences, events and projects.
7. Monitor progress and provide regular feedback to graduate recruits.

Employee engagement is critical, as engaged employees perform better and are more likely to prolong retention within an organisation.