Graduate Development Program as an Interventional Strategy for Talent Management

Abstract

Organizations have recognized the need to have a workforce that can give the company direction and help it adapt to continuous market changes. Many organizations have taken note of this ever-changing competitive market and implemented the Graduate Development Program (GDP) to ensure the development and consistent supply of its talent pool. Adopting a qualitative research design with research instruments that allow interaction with all key stakeholders, the objective of this paper is to assess GDP as an interventional strategy for talent management, in the context of Namibia. The study findings are mixed as it shows that current and past employees feel that the GDP implementation is not effective due to their negative perceptions about the identification of outside talent and yet the findings did reveal that the GDP has resulted in improved talent sets and an enabling environment to recruit, develop and retain staff in critical positions.