Dubai: Graduates on a job hunt are not just looking at financial benefits but also at what organisations can offer them to develop their careers, according to an industry expert.
“In order to think about how you attract and retain the right kind of people it’s really have you got the right employer value proposition in place — part of that is around financial reward,” said Eugene Burke, chief science and analytics officer at advisory firm CEB, on the sidelines of the HR Summit and Expo, which kicked off in Dubai yesterday.
To attract job seekers, employers should communicate certain factors that include opportunities within the organisation to progress their careers, and ways to support employees’ aspirations, Burke explained.
“If you compete on money alone, and other people compete on money, what will keep [the employee] in the organisation?” he added.
In the Middle East and Africa, material reward is not on top of the list of motivational factors to graduates seeking jobs, according to CEB’s latest report, Driving New Success Strategies in Graduate Recruitment. More important factors, however, are opportunities to compete and progress, recognition, status and a clear sense of a secure and equitable relationship with the employer.
The commitment of employees that join organisations that have a clear employer value proposition over a year is 10 times higher than those that have a less clear proposition, Burke said.
CEB states that for every 10 per cent increase in an employee’s commitment, there is a 6 per cent increase in the discretionary effort they invest in their work. This results in a 2per cent increase in productivity.
Graduates tend to navigate their early career opportunities; they seek an employment opportunity with a second employer after getting their first opportunity. Globally, one in four graduates said that they are likely to leave their first employer within a year, the report said.
Managers in the Middle East have said that their graduate hires lack key skills, such as communication and teamwork, CEB stated in its report. Internships, for instance, can help address this challenge.
“Employers ... need to be clear about what stronger communication skills actually mean; how will that be used in the organisation, and be clearer about how they assess for that. Add that to a much clearer employer value proposition,” Burke said.
