A national skills development graduate internship programme as a talent retention strategy

Abstract

The retention of new graduates is a challenge to many South African companies. As a result, organisations invest in graduate internship programmes to attract and retain high calibre graduate interns. The main objective of the research was to determine whether a graduate internship programme, as a national skills development strategy, contributed to the retention of graduate interns in a South African Information, Communication and Technology (ICT) Company. An exploratory, ex post facto research design was followed using a combination of quantitative and qualitative data gathering techniques. Surveys were administered among a purposive selected sample of graduate interns (N=79) and mentors (N=39) in a South African ICT company. Open ended questions were used for the triangulation of results. Results overall showed that the graduate internship programme contributed to the employability and retention of graduate interns. Practically significant relationships were found between technical skills training, mentorship, programme need and the graduate intern‟s intention to quit the internship programme. Practically significant relationships were also found between mentorship, programme need and the mentor‟s intention to employ the graduate intern. The research concludes with a retention strategy framework in guiding the implementation of a graduate internship programme in the ICT sector.