Training activities for fresh graduates in the commercial banks

To develop Singapore into a financial centre in the region, banks need to develop their expertise and skills to meet the increasing competition and accelerating technological changes. Training is a vital strategy to enable the banks to adapt to these changing circumstances. Moreover, training is an important job attribute as it assists new employees to adapt into organisation culture, provides valuable information about the job, eliminates uncertainty and raises the market value of the trainees in the banking industry. Graduates arc often recruited to fill managerial positions to be the future decision makers of the bank. Hence, it is of interest to study the training activities of the banks for fresh graduates. The objectives of this study are to review the training programmes for fresh graduates in the commercial hanks and to evaluate their effectiveness in integrating the trainees into the organisation and achieving a level of competence fur the trainees in their job. The information in this study . was based on surveys conducted on trainees and interviews with the respective training personnel of the four hanks. The major findings arc as follows: J. Commercial hanks in Singapore provide orientation, on-and off-the-job training for fresh graduates recruited 2. The training succeeded in integrating the trainees into the organisation and making them competent for their job, either with minimum or extensive guidance. The study also recommend an "ideal" training programme for the fresh graduates in the banking industry. In addition, various future research topics which might originate from this study arc suggested.BUSINES