Develop newly graduated engineers - How the structures of in-house projects at ÅF can improve the development of newly graduated engineers

Abstract

The lack of employable engineers makes it highly interesting to employ newly graduated engineers. The drawback of newly graduated persons is that they lack experience. To make them develop, this study aims to investigate how the newly graduated employers learn today and how the learning can be optimised. To be able to investigate the learning, the two learning models, the sociocultural learning model and the experiential learning model were used as references. One company that has expanded a lot the latest years is the consultancy company, ÅF. Therefore, the need of new engineers is large and the possibility to employ newly graduated engineers is vital. A survey about newly graduated engineers’ learning during their first project at ÅF has been sent out to all newly graduated employers in Gothenburg. Totally 158 respondents have answered. To get a more objective view of the team’s performance five section managers were also interviewed. The data were analysed using a combine inductive and deductive approach. The result is that the two learning models combined describes the learning process for a newly graduated engineer at ÅF in a satisfactory way. However, depending on the reason of not learning from vague tasks and open environment, there might be a gap in the models, even when combining them. To improve the development of the newly graduated engineers ten activities have been composed and ranked by how much they develop the new engineers and the effect on the team’s performance together with how easy they are to implement. The ranking forms a two-dimensional model for learning activities to develop newly graduated engineers. Every activity is affecting the team due to the development of the newly graduated engineers, making them contribute more to the team. Another way the team is affected is that it can take more or less time to support the newly graduates engineer. These activities will hopefully improve the newly graduated engineers’ development.