Despite operating at a profit this company has just culled 340 people in UK&I. 50 of those people were graduates on the HPE graduate scheme. Combined salary: £1.25M. Next to nothing in the grand scheme of things. While I don't have the figures these graduates are part bankrolled by the Scottish Government - who pay HPE. Makes this even more mind boggling.
As far as the actual graduate scheme goes... they complain about lack of budget and insist they can't afford training (e.g actually develop the graduates ala development scheme), but managed to find money to hire 13 new graduates in January - who were instantly put into a redundancy pool, though of course they all weren't let go despite being the most undertrained staff in the company, because that would be poor PR for the graduate 'development' scheme.
Now that WFM is largely over we will likely hire many more graduates instead of developing the existing ones. We will end up once again overstaffed but undertrained. Competent staff will be either swarmed or will simply leave. Some months will pass and folk will acclimatise to their environment and get to grips with their project just in time for the next WFM to start, where the cycle begins again. We will continue to haemorrhage money on expensive contractors in order to get projects through the door on time.
Addendum: 10+ graduates were hired for February as well, who happily accepted jobs in the amazing multinational company. They worked their notices, quit their old jobs, and some even moved home to get started - and then they were told they could not start 5 days before their starting date. They are now left unemployed with nothing to show for it.
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