We have a cohort of new, young, management trainee joiners starting work with us in a month or so. They are with us for around six months before they move to their next placement. They won't be working closely with each other but dispersed through the organisation but we think (to be tested), that there's value in them developing a 'strong community'.
What we're looking to establish is a network of people who work collectively in the interests of the whole organisation while they are with us, give ideas and support to each other during the six months, and who will feel drawn to return at the end of their training programme. We're in a market where we are competing for good people and what we have to offer is less of the high salary and glossy kit, and more of the social value and being able to influence and create major organisational transformation through creative, co-operative and collective approaches.
We had a go trying to create the strong community that would create the change we are interested in with the previous cohort but not successfully: hopefully we've learned something so undaunted we are giving it another go. We think we learned three things:
- The cohort didn't have the skills or incentive to self-organise into a strong community
- We didn't give them enough (any) guidance on what we were hoping for, our expectations of them and what they could expect from us
- We didn't intervene to generate activity but waited to see what happened (nothing)