Trainees are a remarkable mix. In some ways they are still students, yet at the same time they are professionals. That combination is not only challenging for the trainees themselves; talent managers also have to learn how to deal with it. On the one hand, you need to take trainees by the hand. On the other, you need to give them room to develop. So it is no surprise that the balance is not always easy to find. Yet it matters enormously, because both too much freedom and too much guidance can lead to frustration. And when frustration builds up, burnout and dropout are never far away. So how do you handle the freedom of your trainees? We discuss this through two extremes: the Calimero complex and the entrepreneurial myth.
Too little freedom: the Calimero complex
“They are big and I am small, and that is not fair,” said Calimero. Although trainees cannot be compared to this eternally aggrieved little chick, his famous line touches on a major trainee frustration. In many organisations, trainees are not seen as fully fledged employees, because they still have so much to learn. HR therefore creates a watertight programme in which the training years are fully planned before the trainees have even arrived. This combination of a tightly controlled programme and a lack of room for initiative creates what we call the Calimero complex: trainees feel they have to compete with those above them, without being allowed to have a say in their own development.
The result: frustrated trainees who cannot properly develop into independent professionals and eventually leave.
Too much freedom: the entrepreneurial myth
At the other end of the spectrum are organisations that suffer from the entrepreneurial myth. This term was coined by Michael E. Gerber and refers to the idea that people who are good at their job would also be good entrepreneurs. That is far from always true, because entrepreneurship comes with a whole range of concerns you encounter less often as an employee, such as tax administration, final responsibility and self-promotion. The entrepreneurial myth applies directly to trainees in talent programmes. More and more often, they are expected to gather their own assignments, start conversations with senior management and divide budgets themselves. But entrepreneurial generation or not: Millennials also need to learn what it means to work. Skip that part and you end up with a group of stressed entrepreneurs, without any of them actually running their own business.
The result: frustrated trainees who do not meet the organisation’s expectations and either leave or drop out.
Finding the right balance
Whether you give your trainees too much or too little freedom, it ends in frustration and trainees who either walk away or burn out at the age of 22. That is not only unpleasant for trainees, but also for you. After all, a traineeship is only successful if it produces trainees who are valuable to your organisation in the long term. You therefore need to find a way to give trainees enough structure to learn how to work, while also giving them enough freedom to develop into autonomous people. Not an easy task. To help you on your way, we have listed three tips below.
1. Build up freedom and phase out guidance
Timing is key when it comes to freedom. Just as you take a toddler to school but not a teenager, you can reduce guidance as your trainees learn more about working life and your organisation. For example, arrange the first practical assignment yourself, then send trainees out to find the next project. Do not forget to tell trainees that they will receive less guidance over time, to prevent frustration.
2. Organise training
Trainees tend to take on too much. So it can be very useful to start your talent programme with a group training on this topic. Think of training on handling workload and stress, creating a realistic plan and finding the right work-life balance.
3. Make distinctions
Do your trainees want to spend a few hours a week working in another department and starting new projects? Great. But they do not have to. Every trainee is different. Some are self-starting, while others need extra support. Ask your trainees what they need, for example at the start of the programme and several times along the way.
With these tips, you prevent both the Calimero complex (too little freedom) and the entrepreneurial myth (too much freedom).
Want to know more about the balance between freedom and guidance in talent programmes? Download the whitepaper below.