Maarten Smid – maarten@houdbaar.net – student #1068 3577 Supervisor: Corine Boon Submission date: 31st August 2015

Strategic HRM & The Young Professional Programme BUSINESS MODEL & BRANDING IMPLICATIONS

1

Executive Summary

Young professional programmes have been of interest to companies for quite some time

now. In our research we have been focusing on young professional programmes that are

hosted and built in separate companies. The model consists of a separate (daughter)

company primarily focussing on hosting a young professional programme, like training and

developing talent, for the mother company.

We are particularly interested in the topics of strategic HRM and branding. Our research is

one of theoretical analysis combined with field research in the form of interviews with

alumni, HR directors, and young professionals. Then we apply this theoretical framework to

the case of Avanade, a strong brand, experiencing some challenges in the field of young

professionals.

Applying our theoretical models to our case we found the (mother / daughter) model to be

changed a few times to be able to accommodate challenges the companies experienced. The

model itself however is still valid and feasible.

Recommendations in terms of branding the mother / daughter company is to setup a so-

called ‘House of Brands’ model in order to accommodate for the new company to build

associations which are strong, favourable and unique.

Recommendations in terms of strategic HRM are with the setup of a strong development

programme, not only for young professionals but also for your other employees as well, job

rotation could bring benefits not only for young professionals but for the existing employees

and is recommended to investigate.

Concluding our research, we find the model of mother / daughter companies to be still valid

and valuable, key however is the fit in your current company.

Maarten Smid, 2015

Keywords

HRM, Young Professionals, Theory, IT Industry

Disciplines

(Strategic) Human Resource Management and (Corporate) Branding

2

Table of Contents Executive Summary .................................................................................................................... 1

I. Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 4

A. Young Professional Programmes - Model of interest ..................................................... 4

B. Research Question .......................................................................................................... 5

II. Framing ................................................................................................................................... 6

A. Positioning HRM .............................................................................................................. 6

B. Introducing: Strategic HRM ............................................................................................. 6

C. Young Professionals ........................................................................................................ 9

D. Young Professional Programmes ............................................................................... 11

E. Corporate Branding ....................................................................................................... 14

III. Case description .................................................................................................................. 18

A. Organization Overview .................................................................................................. 18

B. Relevance for Organization ........................................................................................... 19

C. Case Questions & Methodology .................................................................................... 20

IV. Results ................................................................................................................................. 21

A. Theoretical Analysis ....................................................................................................... 21

B. Interviews & Results ...................................................................................................... 25

V. Summary, Conclusions and Recommendations ................................................................... 29

A. Summary ....................................................................................................................... 29

B. Conclusions .................................................................................................................... 29

C. Recommendations ........................................................................................................ 30

D. Discussion & Future Research ................................................................................... 31

VI. References ........................................................................................................................... 33

A. Articles & Books ............................................................................................................ 33

B. Internet .......................................................................................................................... 34

3

C. Foot- and End-Notes ..................................................................................................... 34

D. List of Figures ............................................................................................................. 34

E. List of Tables .................................................................................................................. 35

Appendix A – HR Business Partnership Model by Ulrich (1998) .............................................. 36

Appendix B – Tables ................................................................................................................. 37

4

I. Introduction

After graduation most students are eager to get into the routines of a working life. This

poses some challenges for both the future employee and the future employer. As a future

employee you want to make the right choice for your first job, whiles, as a future employer,

you want to make sure you acquire the right talent for your company.

As generations change, their expectations of, and ways of work change. Future employees,

Young Professionals from here onward, have different views, needs and expectations from

their jobs and careers as compared to their perceiving generation(s). (M. and E. W.

McCrindle, 2011)

This is why most companies nowadays introduce, advertise and host so-called ‘Young

Professional programmes’. These programmes tend to focus on quickly developing skills and

talent of these young professionals and have them gain experience within the company and

industry. Each company usually develops its own model and setup of such a programme,

wherein the responsibilities for development of, performance monitoring, and strategies for

such programmes are often being held by the HR team.

A. Young Professional Programmes - Model of interest

In my professional career I had the opportunity to work with consultants participating in

young professional programmes with different setups and with different goals. One of the

most inspiring setup for me was the model used by Kirkman Company & YSE.

In summary their setup is to employ young professionals to their daughter company, being

YSE, and develop their talents within this company. These young professionals then are

assigned to work for one of the clients of YSE / Kirkman company. If the young professionals

perform according to or above the expectations he or she is offered a position in the mother

company, being Kirkman Company. This is perceived to be a win-win-win situation where the

first win is for the young professional, in gaining experience in the industry and with the

company, the second win is for the company where it gets access to (new) clients and their

network, and the third win is for the customer as he is able to benefit from the services

provided by the young professionals, backed by the mother company, against a lower cost.

In our research we explore if this setup could be beneficial for both Avanade (Netherlands)

and the Dutch IT industry in general.

5

B. Research Question

In our research we, review our model of interest, with focus on both Strategic HRM and

Branding. Branding is of interest as introducing a daughter company puts forward branding

decisions, benefits and risk, whereas (strategic) HRM is of interest as this plays a major role

in developing their employees, selecting talent, and supporting the company in achieving

their strategic goals.

As perceived the model, as used by Kirkman & YSE, could be of interest to Avanade

Netherlands and the IT industry in the Netherlands and therefore requires further research

and answers to some (key) questions. In our research we explore the following key question:

How can strategic HRM be organized to setup and leverage the benefits of young

professional programmes and how should we approach branding in a mother-daughter

company setup?

By studying the relevant concepts, interviewing relevant stakeholder’s, and applying this to

the IT industry in the Netherlands we tend to provide a suggestion for a model, in the end

the goal of the research is to provide a recommendation to Avanade and the Dutch IT

industry as a whole.

In the next section we will discuss the framing, being the concepts and frameworks we feel

are relevant for this research, following the framing we will introduce the case and the

relevant questions, then we will discuss the results, followed by conclusion(s) and

recommendation(s).

6

II. Framing

As the topic of young professionals touches a broad spectrum of the business we will start to

frame the topic in order to focus our research. We will start by describing the relevant

models, which we will later be applying to our case. In this section we start by discussing the

position of HRM and the Resource Based View of the firm then we dive into the topic of

(strategic) HRM. Following these, introductory, sections we will take a closer look at young

professionals and young professional programmes to end with a discussion of (corporate)

branding.

A. Positioning HRM

HRM and the (modern) organization, what is its position in the firm and what is its relevance

to the organization?

We find Porter argues HRM to be one of

the supporting activities to the primary

activities. In his value chain model (Figure

1: The Value Chain by Porter (1985))

Porter argues that the organization

requires supporting activities to be able to

perform the primary activities efficiently.

(Porter, 1985) Here the value added by

HRM could be support of and training

(building competences) of the workforce.

So we can conclude that HRM does add value for the business, but how is this value

perceived and how can we show this value?

B. Introducing: Strategic HRM

Then what is strategic HRM and how does it relate to the HR strategy? Boxall and Prucell

refer to strategic HRM as “a firm’s pattern of strategic choices in labour management and its

human resource strategy” (Boxall & Purcell, 2000, p. 184), whereas the HR strategy presents

the mission and vision for the HR team to work towards.

Before we continue, we will look into the theory by Barney on the Resource Based View.

Figure 1: The Value Chain by Porter (1985)

7

Resource Based View

Introduced by Barney in 1991 the resource based view (RBV) / resource based theory (RBT)

provides an inside-out view to the organization. Barney argues that the SWOT (Strength,

Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) framework only provides half of the story, being the

environmental (outside-in) analysis, (Barney, Ketchen, & Wright, 2011; Barney, 1995), and

therefore suggests for the SWOT analysis to be complimented / completed by this RBV /

RBT.

Key in Barney’s theory are resources, Barney defines resources as being “All of the financial,

physical, human, and organizational assets used by a firm to develop, manufacture, and

deliver products of services to its customers” (Barney, 1995, p. 50) Next, Barney argues that

for a resource to bring a, sustainable, competitive advantage to the organization there are

four (4) questions to be answered positively, being:

1. The Question of Value; does / do the resource(s) of a company add value by either

neutralizing threats or exploiting opportunities?

2. The Question of Rareness; is / are the resource(s) of a company rare and not

commonly available for other companies to control?

3. The Question of Imitability; is / are the resources of a company difficult to imitate or

in possession of specific knowledge?

4. The Question of Organization; is the company organised to fully exploit the

competitive potential of the resources? (Barney, 1995)

These questions summarize into the so-called VRIO / VRIN model in which Barney argues

that the more questions you are able to answer with “Yes” the more sustainable the

competitive advantage will be. This is summarized in the table below (Table i: The VRIO

Framework adapted from Barney (1995))

8

The VRIO Framework

Valuable? Rare? Difficult to Imitate?

Supported by Organization

Competitive Implications

Performance

No Competitive

Disadvantage Below

Normal

Yes No Competitive Parity

Normal

Yes Yes No Temporary Competitive Advantage

Above Normal

Yes Yes Yes Sustained Competitive Advantage

Above Normal

Table i: The VRIO Framework adapted from Barney (1995)

Linking Barney’s resource based view to (strategic) HRM we find that the organization

question is the key here. The organization should support or be able to support the

resource(s) in order to fully benefit from it, how the organisation should support these

resources will differ between them, but requires a (HR) strategy.

The term Human Resource Management already suggests the type of resources HRM is

particularly interested in. Looking at these resources, in this case being the employees of the

company, these should be considered and thus threated as the (possible) source of your

(sustainable) competitive advantage. Others like MacDuffie argue that the Human Resources

are the source of competitive advantage in the organisation as their knowledge of processes,

their routines and their specific experience with a product makes them difficult to imitate.

(Macduffie, 1995)

AMO Model

So how to make sure we leverage our human resources? This is where we introduce the so-

called AMO model. The one key difference between the RBV and the AMO model is their

going-in position. The RBV suggests HRM is one of the possible sources whereas the AMO

Model suggests that HRM is the source.

The AMO model was first introduced by Bailey in 1993 and later improved by Appelbaum et

al. in 2000 (Appelbaum, Bailey, Berg, and Kalleberg, 2000). The initials AMO translate into

9

Ability, Motivation and Opportunity. The model suggest business performance is to be

improved by following HR practices to allow for employees to perform best by: At first;

making them Able to perform their job, they have the skills and experience to do so.

Secondly; keeping them Motivated to perform their job, they want to do their job or are

encouraged to do so, and Thirdly; by giving them the Opportunity to perform their job by for

example having the right tools and support from the manager.

Now let us look at the definition of young professionals and their generations characteristics.

C. Young Professionals

In order to fully understand the target group, we need to review the definition of the term

‘Young Professional’. Definitions of this term are widespread and differ from time to time

and even per geographic location. The most common definition, and the one we are

referring to in our research, is:

People in between 20’s and 30’s.

(Recent) Graduates with no or little working experience, who are getting

employed either in a profession or in so-called white-collar occupation.

Other labels that are being used for this group include ‘High-Potentials’, ‘Trainees’, and

‘Generation Y’. Although the latter is true for now days’ generation Y will eventually no

longer be young. These generations however are of interest to the HRM function. As each

generation, in general, has its own characteristics and views towards the (corporate) world,

this also requires a different approach towards each generation and thus adapting

recruitment and management styles and strategies. (M. McCrindle, 2003) Table ii:

Generations adapted from McCrindle (2003), briefly summarises several generations, in the

next section we will cover Generation Y in more depth, including suggestions on how to

engage with this generation.

10

Generation Y

So let’s look into Generation Y, being the current Young Professionals. One of the questions

HR managers could ask here is: How to attract, select and retain young professionals from

this, being generation Y, generation?

Attract

Looking at the research by McCrindle he argues Generation Y seek an opportunity over a job

and look for things like culture, fun, management style, development opportunities

(training), and flexibility. (M. McCrindle, 2006) So in order to be able to attract generation y

employees your (job) advertisement(s) should showcase this. But there is more than just an

advertisement.

Select

Selecting the right talent is an important step in the recruitment process. But what is

selection? Stone refers to it as “Selection is the process of differentiating between applicants

in order to identify and hire those with a greater likelihood of success in a job.” (Stone, 1982,

p. 173) As there is cost involved in the selection process, it is important to be as effective

and thorough as possible. Depending on the job being offered so-called selection tests may

be used (i.e. IQ test, Intelligence test(s) or fitness test(s)) The result of this selection process

is a job offer followed by an acceptance (or rejection) of your candidate.

1 Age at time of writing, August 2015.

Description Born Age1 Key Characteristics Builders Before 1946 69+ -

Boomers 1946 – 1964 51 – 69 Adaptive & Flexible generation, collaborative management style.

Generation X 1965 – 1979 36 – 50 Easily adopt both boomers work ethic and focus and Gen Y views, values & culture. Perceived to be a perfect bridge generation between Boomers & Y.

Generation Y 1980 – 1994 21 – 35 See C. Young Professionals – Generation Y

Generation Z 1995 – 2009 6 – 20 -

Table ii: Generations adapted from McCrindle (2003)

11

Looking at selection in relation to generation Y we find they prefer interviews, limited to one

interviewer and with a max of two (2) interviews. (M. McCrindle, 2006)

Retain

As the job mobility of Generation Y is higher as compared to the baby boomers a good

retention strategy is needed to help retain these generation Y employees. In his research

McCrindle discovered five (5) factors standing out, being:

1. Work / Life Balance; Generation Y thinks of work as being part of life, not life itself.

They want to be flexible to pursue whatever opportunities outside of work the

encounter.

2. Workplace Culture: Generation Y is concerned with being valued within the company

and perceive their colleagues as being workmates and sometimes friends.

3. Varied Job Role: Generation Y like roles where variety and flexibility is part of the job.

They are keen to change, having responsibility, and seek for openness on how

decisions are being made.

4. Management Style: Generation Y like organic and flexible leadership styles where

decisions are being made on basis of consensus rather than command, this allows for

participation of generation y in the decision making process.

5. Training: Generation Y understands that training is key to keep being relevant in

today’s competitive market, they foster training opportunities for both technical and

soft-skill training.

McCrindle suggest employers to take notice of these insights and develop a retention

strategy with these in mind. (M. McCrindle, 2003) Looking at the key topics mentioned we

find this is usually also part of a so-called young professional programme, what more is

perceived to be in such a programme? Let us find out in the following section.

D. Young Professional Programmes

Diving into the topic of young professional programmes. What is perceived to be the content

of such a programme? This leads to one of the key questions being: What is a young

professional programme and what should be the content of such a programme? This

question consists of two (2) parts, the first What is a young professional programme?

already has a different answer depending on the company and industry where it is being

12

implemented. In our results section (IV. Results) we will provide our view. The second

question can be more related to theories, we have selected job rotation and talent

management since we argue these are required in each (young professional) programme.

Job Rotation

The concept of Job Rotation is perceived as “lateral transfers of employees between jobs in

an organization” (Campion, Cheraskin, & Stevens, 1994, p. 1518) The reasoning for rotation

of jobs can vary from reducing boredom, for orientation & placement, and staffing functions

(for example peaks in workloads). (Campion et al., 1994)

Outcomes of the research by Campion et al. show that early-career employees are more

likely to be interested in rotating between jobs, and that employees which are performing

well are more likely to be rotated, maybe as a form of reward(ing)? Employees perceive job

rotation as a good learning mechanism too as they perceive their skills to have improved by

this exercise. (Campion et al., 1994)

The learning mechanism of job rotation was studied by Ortega. This research shows job

rotation being a better learning mechanism over specialization, specifically for employees in

their early careers. (Ortega, 2001)

In- versus Inter-company

Looking at job rotation we can distinct two (2) different forms of job rotation, being in- and

inter-company. Inter-company job rotation is common in a consulting environment in which

the employees of the consultancy agency work on different projects at different customers

during their careers. Learning comes from different experiences in different work

environments in different organisations and sometimes even different industries.

On the other hand, an in-company model supports employees moving around within the

company. Here the working environment (here the company) does not change but the

department where the employee is working changes. Key difference is the level of expertise

and the perceived goal, in the in-company model the goal could be to find the best fit for an

employee in a department, whereas the inter-company, specifically in consulting

environments, bring expertise to their customer their customer does (currently) not have.

13

Employment Flexibility

In their research Lepak, et al. studied the effect of employment modes on firm performance.

Lepak, et al. define four (4) types of employment being: Knowledge based, Job-based,

Contract, and Alliances. (Lepak, Takeuchi, & Snell, 2003)

In our research we will focus on the third being the Contract work; or “individuals being

contracted to perform specific tasks with a limited scope, purpose, and or duration” (Lepak et

al., 2003, p. 683) Based on their research, Lepak, et al. discuss that there is a clear relation

between an increase in firm performance and contract work. This could be of the nature of

the work or assignment, usually project work.

Talent Management

Talent, as we have learned in the AMO model (section B. Introducing: Strategic HRM, AMO

Model), needs to be at least: Able, Motivated and given the Opportunity to perform their

jobs. As talent management is often about cost, we need to pay for a particular training, and

companies are amounted to make money we need a trade-off between these two (2). In his

research Cappelli referrers to talent management as being a supply and demand alike

system (Cappelli, 2008). Cappelli introduces four (4) principles that help to improve the

return on investment and internal opportunities for employees. These four (4) principles are;

1. Make and Buy to manage Risk; Here Cappelli argues that talent can also be hired

externally for specific positions, and that precious resources should be

thoughtfully positioned.

2. Adapt to the Uncertainty in Talent Demand; Here Cappelli suggests a talent pool

to be setup with resources that can be allocated among business units. Also

shortening training programmes will help to deal with the uncertainty.

3. Improve the Return on Investment in Developing Employees; Cappelli suggest

that employees take a share in the costs of development, this can either be in

time and or money. Adding to this maintaining relationships with former

employees could bring benefits in the future.

4. Preserve the Investment by Balancing Employee-Employer Interests; Here

Cappelli suggests the balance to between the employee and the employer

14

interests is key and suggest that advancement decisions should be shared

between the two (2).

Cappelli in general suggests that practises of engineering and planning should be applied in

HR talent management in order to be able to shift to what Cappelli refers to as a “talent-on-

demand” model. (Cappelli, 2008, p. 81)

E. Corporate Branding

In the context of the mother and daughter perceived setup, being the way Kirkman & YSE

have setup their programme, branding plays an important role. This results in a question

like: How to setup the brand architecture for a company with a mother / daughter

relationship?

Therefore, in this section we will dive into the theories of corporate branding and various

branding strategies which could be leveraged in this setup. In this section we discuss the

various corporate branding strategies, discuss concepts like points of difference and points

of parity, and then discuss how to leverage this in order to grow your brand.

Brand Associations & Positioning

One of the key elements in branding are the so-called associations with the brand, as a

company you want your customers (whether business to business or business to consumer)

to have brand associations which are: Strong, Favourable and Unique. (SFU) Strong

associations come up easy and are linked to (one of) your brand(s), the association(s) then

should be favourable to your brand, in other words they should tell something positive for

the brand, then the associations should be unique meaning that it is not (easily) linked to

(one of) your competitor’s brands.

In terms of associations the terms points of parity and points of difference are of key

importance. Looking at the definition of both terms we find:

Points of Parity (POP): These are associations which are not unique to your brand

and could be shared with other brands. Key here is to be in the game you at least

need to be on par (parity) with your competitors.

15

Points of Difference (POD): These associations are unique to your brand / offering

and therefore should be leveraged. Important to notice is that a POD can overtime

become a POP as new companies enter the market or standards / expectations

change.

So how can a brand leverage this? According to Keller: “Frame of reference, points of parity,

and points of difference are moving targets” (Keller, Sternthal, Tybout, & Extensions, 2002,

p. 86) This requires brand managers to constantly adapt their brand positioning and thus

keep track of the markets and their context. So should you introduce a new brand, or try to

leverage / lift on the success of a brand already in your (brand) portfolio? Let us discuss in by

reviewing the so-called Brand Relationship Spectrum.

The Brand Relationship Spectrum

In 2000 Aaker and Joachimsthaler together introduced the

‘Brand Relationship Spectrum’ in order to review and design

what they call a ‘Brand Architecture’. According to Aaker and

Joachimsthaler “A coherent brand architecture can lead to

impact, clarity, synergy, and leverage rather than market

weakens, confusion, and missed opportunities” (Aaker &

Joachimsthaler, 2000, p. 8)

From their model (Figure 2: Brand Relationship Spectrum by

Aaker & Joachimsthaler (2000)) we derive four (4) main-, and

nine (9) sub-strategies which we will briefly discuss:

1. House of Brands

a. Not Connected: Independent brand(s) with no or

little links i.e. the portfolio of General Motors

having several brands like Opel and Chevrolet.

b. Shadow Endorser: Independent brand(s) with no

direct link, however the link is well known by the

majority of the consumers i.e. BMW and Mini

Cooper.

Figure 2: Brand Relationship Spectrum by

Aaker & Joachimsthaler (2000)

16

2. Endorsed Brands

a. Token Endorsement: Often used to add credibility from the mother brand to

the daughter brand, i.e. ‘a Sony Company’ and ‘by Calvin Klein’.

b. Linked Name: Here the name of the brand / product itself creates a family of

brands, i.e. iPhone, iPad, iMac, McMuffin, McNuggets, etc.

c. Strong Endorsement: Here the daughter brand uses a strong endorsement to

help boost the image of the mother brand. The goal is here to link additional

associations to the mother brand.

3. Sub brands

a. Co-Drivers: Here the sub brand on its own is also well respected and plays an

almost equal role as the parent brand, i.e. Levis 501, the number 501 is

generally associated to the Levis brand and could be brand on its own.

b. Master Brand as Driver: Here the name of the mother brand is often used with

a post-fix, i.e. HP Deskjet and Dell Latitude.

4. Branded House

a. Different Identity: Here the identity and associations of the mother brand are

being used but adapted to the country or target group, i.e. GE Capital

(professional services) and GE Appliances (Home usage)

b. Same Identity: Here the sub brand has usually just descriptive value, i.e. Virgin

Radio and Virgin Rail or FedEx Express and FedEx Services. The master brand is

the only driver here.

17

Brand Separation Model

In the same article (Aaker & Joachimsthaler, 2000), Aaker and Joachimsthaler provide

guidance on how to select the right position / strategy in their Brand Relationship Spectrum.

They argue that most of the organisations will usually have a mixture of the four (4) different

(main) branding strategies. Their Brand Separation model (Table iii: Brand Separation Model

by Aaker & Joachimsthaler (2000)) provides guidance by asking questions towards one of the

two (2) extremes in the Brand Relationship Spectrum. We will use their model to answer the

question regarding brand architecture and setup.

Toward a Branded House Toward a House of Brands Does the master brand contribute to the offering by adding;

Associations enhancing the value proposition?

Credibility with organization associations?

Visibility?

Communication efficiencies?

Is there a compelling need for a separate brand because it will;

Create and own an association?

Represent a new different offering?

Avoid an association?

Retain/ capture customer/ brand bond?

Deal with channel conflict?

Will the master brand be strengthened by associating with the new offering?

Will the business support a new brand name?

Table iii: Brand Separation Model by Aaker & Joachimsthaler (2000)

Now that we have discussed the relevant theories and completed our framing, we will

introduce the case.

18

III. Case description

The research in the first place is targeted towards the Avanade Netherlands organization, in

this section we introduce the organisation, the case and relevance for the organisation.

A. Organization Overview

Avanade entered into business in the year 2000 starting as a joint venture between

Accenture and Microsoft. After setting up the company in the United States Avanade

Netherlands opened for business in 2004. From its start till date both Avanade and Avanade

Netherlands have shown rapid growth both in terms of revenue and employees.

Avanade provides consulting services with a pure Microsoft focus. In the Joint Venture

Accenture provides knowledge on industries, business processes and project management

whereas Microsoft provides the technology. Solutions provided to the customers go from

technical infrastructures and migrations to new webpages and mobile applications. This is

summarized in their vision:

“Our vision is to be recognized as a global services innovator, helping customers realize the

best results from the Microsoft platform.” (Avanade Company Website)

The core to Avanade’s business and therefore what makes Avanade unique are their people

and their culture. This is also evidenced by their so-called core-values, being;

“Achieve through global teamwork

Focus on customers

Embrace change

Demonstrate a passion for technology

Build the Avanade experience

Act with integrity, dignity and respect” (Avanade Company Website)

In reviewing these core-values we argue at least four (4) of these values have their

employees in mind(!) (highlighted in bold)

One of the competitive advantages of Avanade is their people, these people have and gain

the experience and knowledge. Besides that, their employees should have a feeling for being

and behaving as a consultant and being able to work in and deliver as a team. As this is

19

important and one of the key focus areas of Avanade the recruitment and selection

processes are carefully performed.

In terms of HRM processes the employees are being serviced / enabled by the HRM team.

Not all tasks are being performed in the Dutch office as some are being outsourced (like

payroll) and others are being coordinated by the Global organisation (like training) applying

the HR Business Partnership model from (Ulrich, 1998) we argue the Dutch HRM team to

currently be a ‘Administrative Expert’. (Review: Appendix A – HR Business Partnership Model

by Ulrich (1998) for more information)

In terms of the business model growth is possible by either increasing an employee’s

productivity (measured in chargeability), which is limited (40 hours in The Netherlands) or

add employees to the company. Since the goal of Avanade is to continue growing over the

upcoming years acquiring talent is the only sustainable solution to accommodate this

growth.

B. Relevance for Organization

As acquiring talent becomes more challenging within Avanade there is a focus to hire

interns. These interns are given the opportunity to work on their own project for about 5-6

months and get a taste what is it like to work for Avanade. After this time Avanade makes a

decision whether there is a fit, and the intern is thus offered a positon, or there is no fit. This

till date has been a successful but rather unstructured way of attracting talent to Avanade.

Adding to this there is a slight disconnect between the knowledge from the current

graduates (being focused on Java) and the knowledge we expect (being Microsoft .NET) this

is one of the reasons why a Young Professional Programme was questioned to be a (one of)

the possible solutions to acquire new talent and make sure they get trained, and gather

experience as per ‘The Avanade Experience’. (One of the Core-Values)

20

C. Case Questions & Methodology

In our review of the theory we have asked ourselves several questions. In this section we

summarize these questions and think of a methodology to approach these research

questions:

1. How to attract, select and retain young professionals from this, being generation Y,

generation?

2. What is a young professional programme and what should be the content of such a

programme?

3. How to setup the brand architecture for a company with a mother / daughter

relationship?

Looking at the questions above these can be answered applying the theoretical models

introduced in section II. Framing. The method here would thus be one of theoretical study /

field research. The outcomes to these questions can be found in section IV. Results

Theory is not the only source of information used. We would require a different method to

be able to answer the following research questions:

4. What are the perceived benefits brought by young professional programmes to the

organisation?

5. What are the experiences in the market with regard to mother / child companies?

These answers are to be provided by doing several structured and unstructured interviews

with different stakeholders and stakeholders of various seniority (HR Directors, HR Staff,

Alumni and current Young Professionals) in both the Avanade, YSE, and Kirkman

organizations.

Finally, putting it all together, summarising, and to be able to come to a recommendation we

would need to answer the following research questions:

6. How to organise and setup a young professional programme using a daughter

company?

7. How could Avanade benefit by leveraging these?

Answering these questions leads to the recommendation which is to be found in section V.

Summary, Conclusions and Recommendations of our paper.

21

IV. Results

This section describes the results when applying the framing to the case at hand. Looking at

our research questions we can easily divide them into three (3) different groups, one group

being particularly focussed on the theory, one group focussing on the practise, interviews in

our case, and the last group focussing on summarising and recommendations.

In this section we will discuss the first two (2) groups, being A. Theoretical Analysis and B.

Interviews & Results.

A. Theoretical Analysis

In this section we will apply our, selected, theoretical models to our case and try to answer

the research questions below:

1. How to attract, select and retain young professionals from this, being generation Y,

generation?

2. What is a young professional programme and what should be the content of such a

programme?

3. How to setup the brand architecture for a company with a mother / daughter

relationship?

We will answer the questions one by one. In the end the outcome of these questions will

summarize into a recommendation which is to be found in section V. Summary, Conclusions

and Recommendations

Question 1: How to attract, select and retain young professionals from this, being

generation Y, generation?

In answering this question we relate to the theories as introduced by McCrindle (M.

McCrindle, 2006) and described in section II. Framing. McCrindle argues generation Y is

looking for an opportunity over a job and is thus attracted by things like culture,

opportunities for (personal / professional) growth and flexibility.

In terms of selection we discussed the theories from both McCrindle and Stone (M.

McCrindle, 2006; Stone, 1982) McCrindle suggests the generation Y is used to interviews but

think two (2) interviews should be sufficient. Stone refers to selection as being “Selection is

22

the process of differentiating between applicants in order to identify and hire those with a

greater likelihood of success in a job.” (Stone, 1982, p. 173)

After being able to attract and select the young professionals we need to retain them in

order for them to be able to bring benefits to the organisation in the long(er) run. We

discussed the five (5) factors, McCrindle (M. McCrindle, 2006) argues to be key in a

company’s retention strategy, being:

1. Work / Life balance

2. Workplace culture

3. Varied Job Role

4. Management Style

5. Training

Applying this to our case we argue Avanade is already performing most of the tasks, related

to attracting (young) professionals, by using corporate website(s), career events, social

networks like Facebook & Twitter, and recruitment agencies. Avanade has won awards like

‘Top Employer ICT 2015’ and ‘Top Employer Europe’i and tries to leverage the impact made

by these (kind of) awards.

In terms of selection, managers having field experience, perform the initial interview and

may make decisions on hiring young professionals, some cases / candidates require

additional interviews with the service line manager (business unit manager). Generic tests

are not being used nor templates or fixed instructions on how to structure the interviews.

In retaining (young) professionals Avanade relies on the career (line) managers of the

professional. The career manager is the first contact point for the employee and acts as a

coach. Training is required and should be at least 10 days each year. The culture and

management style are being monitored by both the leadership- and HR teams. Employees

are asked to share their experiences in the yearly survey (Pulse). Whereas the varied job role

is standard at Avanade, projects, at the client side, last for 6-12 months on average before

moving to another client / project. Work / Life balance monitored by the managers and HR,

using timesheets. In case an unbalance is ‘found’, managers are required to contact their

employee and discuss what caused this unbalance and if this is structural or incidental.

Overall we conclude Avanade looks ready to attract, select, and retain (young) professionals.

23

Question 2: What is a young professional programme and what should be the content of

such a programme?

This question can be split into two (2) questions worthwhile answering separately. The first

would then be: What is a young professional programme? Followed by: What should be the

content of such a programme? So let us start with the first.

What is a young professional programme?

Comparison between Capgemini & Rabobank

At time of writing there is little to no research on this topic, so we start by comparing two (2)

young professional programmes to each other, one being the one from Capgeminiii a global

IT consulting firm, and the other being from Rabobankiii a Dutch Bank.

Looking at the key similarities we find both programmes to be targeted to graduates with up

to a maximum of 1 year of working experience, adding to that training plays a key role in

both programmes this training is both technical as well as on soft-skills. The next similarity is

the job-rotation, both programmes focus on job rotation, the one being internal (Rabobank)

and the other being external at clients of Capgemini.

In terms of differences we only notice the location of the projects to be performed,

Capgemini, with his focus on clients places the young professionals with the client, where

Rabobank, having no external clients to perform services, keeps their young professionals

inside of the company. We explained this difference, the difference between in- and inter-

company, in paragraph D. Young Professional Programmes of the II. Framing section.

Definition

Based on the method of comparing two (2) programmes’ we define a young professional

programme as follows:

A young professional programme is a structured development programme, specifically

targeted towards people with little or no working experience in between their 20’s and 30’s,

which tends to be limited to a specific timeframe and focusses on (rapid) development of

skills.

Now that we have a definition, what should be the content of such programmes?

24

What should be the content of such a programme?

Again we will use the comparison between Capgemini and Rabobank as a starting point for

our discussion and definition. Looking at the content of the programmes, both Capgemini

and Rabobank consider job rotation, in their specific way, in their setup, offer training

targeted to both technical skills as well as ‘soft’ skills (i.e. presenting, public speaking), and

have several career paths for young professionals.

Looking at the content we conclude that training, job rotation and management of career

paths is key in these programmes. This however does not cover the whole story, looking at

things like management style and company culture, which are perceived to be important by

generation Y, these ‘softer’ contents are equally important, but hard to write down. Cultural

fit is something that is to be experienced as goes for the fit of management style. In the end

having the content but lacking the cultural fit will not lead to retaining young professionals.

The goals for the organisation is to select the best, out of the best, and make them stick in

the company. Overall we argue training, job rotation and career paths to be tools in trying to

achieve this goal.

Question 3: How to setup the brand architecture for a company with a mother / daughter

relationship?

In this section we will discuss the suggested architecture in terms of branding. The setup of a

new company, as this is our research goal, poses risk. This risk is to be mitigated as such that

it is acceptable. In terms of branding we have a strong mother brand which has strong,

favourable and unique associations, and which is leveraging its points of difference. Then

there is the new company, the child, company which currently has no associations which can

drive it.

So there is both a risk and opportunity here, the risk being that the new brand turns any

associations currently unique and connected to the mother brand from a point of difference

to a point of parity whiles the opportunity being is adding new associations to the new

brand, which could be of interest to your mother brand.

Taking into account the Brand Separation Model (Table iii: Brand Separation Model by Aaker

& Joachimsthaler (2000)) we should be answering the following question(s) in order to

25

support the route towards a ‘House of Brands’ model: Is there a compelling need for a

separate brand because it will;

Create and own an association?

Represent a new different offering?

Avoid an association?

Retain/ capture customer/ brand bond?

Deal with channel conflict?

In answering these questions, we argue there is a need for new associations, there is a new

offering which however is somewhat related to the pervious offering, there is a need to

avoid an association with the mother brand, and as there is a new group of consumers to be

captured we need to differentiate here as well, finally in terms of channel there is a conflict

with the mother brand. With this in mind, we suggest, based on the research from Aaker and

Joachimsthaler (Aaker & Joachimsthaler, 2000), to include both a House of Brands with a

shadow endorser and a token endorsement as the options.

In the end the most important question is for the business, they need to support the brand

name. (Aaker & Joachimsthaler, 2000)

Applying this to Avanade, we argue Avanade is a well-recognised brand with several strong,

favourable and unique brand associations. For Avanade setting up a daughter company we

would recommend to use the ‘House of Brands’ model.

B. Interviews & Results

In this section we will review the results of our interviews and try to answer the research

questions below:

4. What are the perceived benefits brought by young professional programmes to the

organisation?

5. What are the experiences in the market with regard to mother / child companies?

The outcomes of these interviews are important to be able to match our theoretical analysis

with the experiences in the field. Following these interviews, we can summarize our research

and provide recommendations. To review the number of interviewed employees per

26

company, review: Table iv: Number of interviewed employees per company in Appendix B –

Tables

Note: The answers to the interview questions have been translated from Dutch to English

and reformulated in order to ensure correct interpretation.

Question 4: What are the perceived benefits brought by young professional programmes

to the organisation?

To be able to answer this question we conducted interviews with several people form the

YSE / Kirkman and Avanade organisations. As per their answers we find the following

perceived benefits; Access to talent, refreshed energy, bridging the generation gap.

Access to talent

“Not all companies are in good shape to attract young professionals or have the capacity to

hire, train and benefit from these young professionals. Attracting talent requires specific

targeting and convincing of the target group that your company is a fun place to work and

can provide the features young professionals are looking for” – HR Director at YSE

As the YSE company is setup specifically to target young professionals, train, and coach them

there is a huge pool of talent available to them (being YSE) and thus to their clients. YSE

builds on the client relations build by Kirkman to be able to post their talent.

For a company having access to talent brings different dynamics / energy into the

organisation, it could help drive innovation, and provide access to other talent by leveraging

the network of these young professionals.

As this talent, in our case, comes from a consulting company (Kirkman and YSE) there are

some guarantees as well there is a company to back the talent (in case of errors). For the

organisation, being the client, taking the services there thus is a low risk.

Having access to talent usually results in being able to benefit from the other two (2) drivers.

Refreshed Energy

“As young professionals usually are educated by the latest standards and with the latest

theory on their specific subject(s), and adding to that are not hindered by any prior

27

knowledge or sentiment. This allows for a refreshing view on how the business operates and

how this could be optimized.” – HR Director at Avanade

“The sentiment of ‘we have always done it like this’ usually gets in the culture of companies,

breaking these sentiments can potentially bring added value to the business.” – HR Director

at YSE

Having a refreshing view / energy on the ways of working and for example a business

process could benefit the whole organisation. As information systems develop and

automation of processes increases having the proper knowledge of these systems and being

able to monitor these systems becomes equally important, usually well trained on using

technology and often interested in development of these technology young professionals

can easily recommend changes to and adapt to these changes in the (business) processes.

The energy brought along by the young professional could also boost the morale of the

other people in the team / workforce increasing the productivity of this team.

This brings us to the differences between generations and the closing of this gap.

Bridging the generation gap

“Some employees who have made a career in a company could get stuck in their daily

routines and way of work.” – Young Professional at YSE

Young professionals can have a levering effect on teams, as these Generation Y has different

views over Generation X and the so-called Baby Boomers, their ideas can be refreshing but

also be perceived as a risk for one another. The open mind in Generation Y can help bridging

gaps between generations and teams. Listing to each and every one story before drawing a

conclusion. As per our research Generation Y has a different response to management and

does not perceive leadership to be always right, but challenges and questions, seeking for

consensus over using power.

Question 5: What are the experiences in the market with regard to mother / child

companies?

Looking at experiences we focus our attention to YSE. Their model is perceived to be a ‘win-

win-win’ situation, where the clients of YSE, YSE / Kirkman itself, and the young professional

28

gain / win. “This is what makes our model successful, if this is no longer the case we and the

model have failed” – HR Director at YSE.

This model however has changed over the past years. In the starting years YSE was a full

daughter company founded by Kirkman, young professionals wanting to join Kirkman where

put on the YSE payroll and motivated to work hard in order to earn a contract at Kirkman

Company. This model worked ok, but posed a few challenges. “The result was that I, being a

young professional, felt to be part of YSE rather than part of Kirkman” – Alumni at YSE.

Adding to that after serving their, 2 years, contract they were free to go, efforts put into

training these young professionals where not always leveraged by YSE / Kirkman.

A slight change to the model was implemented to counter this challenge, as simple as

putting the young professionals on the payroll of Kirkman instead of on YSE’s. Kirkman and

YSE remained in the same holding but where now further separated.

As demand changed in the market the model was again updated. “We received feedback

from clients wanting to benefit from YSE talent within their own company” – HR Director at

YSE.

In its current model YSE now supports multiple clients offering a young professional

programme as a service. YSE makes sure to train young professionals, based on the

requirements of the company and facilitates the programme, taking away administrative

burden in companies which do not have the facilities to setup such a programme

themselves. “Our risk is low, our clients pay us to facilitate the programme, we need to make

sure we deliver the expected quality” – HR Director at YSE.

The shift is model is interesting, as the perceived benefits could thus not be met using their

initial setup. Changes to the model now have turned the former daughter company into a

business on its own.

29

V. Summary, Conclusions and Recommendations

A. Summary

To finalise our research, we need to draw conclusions and provide recommendations.

Looking at our research it included lots of theoretical review, some interviews and a

potentially large scope. As start we narrowed the scope down to two (2) topics we were

particularly interested in being Strategic HRM and Branding. In our research we intended to

test theories against practise and tried to understand what was going-on. Looking at the

case and the results we argue there are a few surprises, models that had a huge potential

where changed and definitions of a ‘young professionals’ and ‘young professional

programmes’ where hard to find / come to.

B. Conclusions

In order to conclude our research, let us review the key questions we introduced earlier,

being:

How can strategic HRM be organized to setup and leverage the benefits of young

professional programmes and how should we approach branding in a mother-daughter

company setup?

Looking at strategic HRM we conclude their importance in organising a young professional

programme is with the recruitment & selection process where the HRM function has a key

role to attract and select the right talent for the organisation. Following selection developing

skills and making your talent perform at best is the next key role for the HRM function,

development programmes targeted toward specific career paths should be in place and

must be supported by the organisation.

In terms of branding a ‘House of Brands’ as per research of Aaker & Joachimsthaler (Aaker &

Joachimsthaler, 2000) we conclude would be the best choice. Benefits are that this will not

harm the mother brand in case of negative experiences. Drawbacks include strong,

favourable and unique associations cannot be transferred or linked to the mother brand.

In answering the question and sub-questions we have found that the mother-daughter

setup, despite some (minor) changes to the model is a good setup to pursue. The changes as

experienced in the YSE / Kirkman setup are just minor and have shown that the model is still

30

effective. We conclude that the setup of a separate organisation / company has benefits in

terms of attracting the right talent but also has his drawbacks in terms of administrative

‘overhead’. Overall we conclude this model to be effective and suggest to take it into

consideration in developing a young professional programme.

C. Recommendations

In this section we tend to write down our recommendations, in general, as well as

recommendation specific towards Avanade. We will structure our recommendations based

upon our final two (2) questions being:

6. How to organise and setup a young professional programme using a daughter

company?

As in our research we will focus on two (2) topics being strategic HRM and branding, our

recommendations are as follows:

Strategic HRM:

As per model of YSE / Kirkman we recommend to setup a separate company to attract young

professionals and train them in the first two (2) years. Overall we recommend that in order

to attract young professionals to your (sub) organisation one could consider using the term

‘Young Professional Programme’ in attracting talent, as young professionals will be triggered

by these kind of programmes. After attracting talent, they should be treated alike the other

employees, receiving training, gaining experience, and become embedded in the

organisation.

We recommend HR development programmes should be in effect in every organisation

regardless of age and or experience. As job rotation is not always an option within an

organisation (inter-company) due to specific knowledge we recommend to review a rotation

setup which will fit your organisation.

Branding:

In terms of branding our (sub) company we recommend the ‘House of brands’ model as per

theory of Aaker and Joachimsthaler (Aaker & Joachimsthaler, 2000). We recommend to

setup a new organisation and brand it separately from the mother organisation to avoid

channel conflict.

31

7. How could Avanade benefit by leveraging these?

So, how could the Avanade benefit by applying our recommendations? Looking at Avanade

as a place to work we argue most of the recommendations to be in place within the current

organisation. Still they could benefit by advertising a so-called young professional

programme and thus to attract these young professionals.

In the case of Avanade, we do not recommend setting up a new company and thus

establishing a new brand. Avanade currently is in good shape to attract talent the way it is

currently organized. The brand is well known and perceived to be ‘the experts’ in the

market.

Key items like: training, culture, and development is in place and being valued by their

current employees as evidenced by the results of their yearly, internal, ‘Pulse’ survey.

D. Discussion & Future Research

So, looking at the conclusions and recommendations what can we take away? Well first one

could argue the term ‘Young Professional Programme’ to be a marketing instrument rather

than actually adding value or doing something different over regular HR development

programmes, further research is required to review this statement.

Second it is key to mention is that although the results are based on the outcomes of our

interviews there is no practical evidence the recommendation will work in other companies

and / or within Avanade. Interestingly during interviews participants recognised changes

made in the setup of the programmes. The model changed a few times and the business

model shifted from serving one company to serve multiple.

As time was limited we limited ourselves in interviewing just two (2) companies, being YSE /

Kirkman and Avanade, as these will have a biased story towards their own company chances

are the research is biased towards an outcome in their favour / towards their model.

Future Research

Looking at room for future research we would like to take the opportunity to share the

following suggestions:

32

Differences in development programmes; What models are common in the

(strategic) HRM practise and what is their effect? How do these compare to a ‘young

professional programme’, and what can we learn from one another?

(Age) Diversity and Young Professionals; As young professionals most likely interact

with other young(er) professionals their view could become biased, same is for levels

of education. This is most likely the case in so-called intra-company programmes.

Broader and unbiased; Looking at our research we limited ourselves, due to time-

constraints, to just two (2) companies, one (YSE / Kirkman) having a clear bias

towards the concept, the other being the receiving party (Avanade). Further research

could be broader and less biased / unbiased.

Involve clients from companies; An interesting field for further study could be

involving the clients from consulting companies and interview them to be able to

review if they experience the benefits as we perceive them to be.

33

VI. References

A. Articles & Books

Aaker, D. a, & Joachimsthaler, E. (2000). The Brand Relationship Spectrum: The Key to the Brand Architecture Challenge. California Management Review, 42(4), 8–23.

Appelbaum, E., Bailey, T., Berg, P. and Kalleberg, A. (2000). Manufacturing Advantage: Why High Performance Work Systems Pay Off. New York: Cornell University Press.

Barney, J. B. (1995). Looking inside for competitive advantage. Academy of Management Perspectives, 9(4), 49–61.

Barney, J. B., Ketchen, D. J., & Wright, M. (2011). The Future of Resource-Based Theory: Revitalization or Decline? Journal of Management, 37(5), 1299–1315.

Boxall, P., & Purcell, J. (2000). Strategic human resource management: where have we come from and where should we be going? International Journal of Management Reviews, 2(2), 183–203.

Campion, M. a., Cheraskin, L., & Stevens, M. J. (1994). Career-Related Antecedents and Outcomes of Job Rotation. Academy of Management Journal, 37(6), 1518–1542.

Cappelli, P. (2008). Talent Management for the Twenty-First Century. Harvard Business Review, (March).

Keller, L., Sternthal, B., Tybout, A., & Extensions, B. (2002). Three Questions You Need to Ask About Your Brand. Harvard Business Review, 80–86.

Lepak, D. P., Takeuchi, R., & Snell, S. a. (2003). Employment flexibility and firm performance: Examining the interaction effects of employment mode, environmental dynamism, and technological intensity. Journal of Management, 29(5), 681–703.

Macduffie, J. P. (1995). Human resource bundles and manufacturing performance: Organizational logic and flexible production systems in the world auto industry. Industrial & Labor Relations Review, 48(2), 197–221.

McCrindle, M. (2003). Understanding Generation Y.

McCrindle, M. (2006). New Generations at Work.

McCrindle, M. and E. W. (2011). The ABC of XYZ. In The ABC of XYZ, Understanding the Global Generations. UNSW Press.

Ortega, J. (2001). Job Rotation as a Learning Mechanism. Management Science, 47(10), 1361–1370.

34

Porter, M. E. (1985). Competitive Advantage: Creating and sustaining superior performance. New York (Vol. 15).

Stone, T. (1982). Understanding Personnel Management. Dryden Press.

Ulrich, D. (1998). A New Mandate for Human Resources. Harvard Business Review, 76(1), 124–134.

B. Internet

Avanade Vision Statement: http://www.avanade.com/en/about-avanade/about-

us/about-us, Last visited: 10-08-2015

(Image) Brand Relationship Spectrum: http://blogs-

images.forbes.com/onmarketing/files/2015/06/Brand-Relationship-Spectrum--

1247x1940.jpg, Downloaded: 10-08-2015

(Image) Value Chain: http://cdn2.businesssetfree.com/wp-

content/uploads/2013/09/Porters-Value-Chain-e1379298719516.png?3d1de4,

Downloaded: 11-08-2015

(Image) HR Business Partnership:

http://image.slidesharecdn.com/strategichumanresourcemanagement-

120716211840-phpapp02/95/strategic-human-resource-management-18-

638.jpg?cb=1415412948, Downloaded: 10-08-2015

C. Foot- and End-Notes

i. Avanade Press Release Top Employer: http://www.avanade.com/nl-nl/press-

releases/avanade-top-employer-europa-en-top-employers-ict-2015-page, Last

visited: 24-08-2015

ii. Capgemini Young Professional landing page: https://www.nl.capgemini.com/werken-

bij-capgemini/jouw-carrierepad/young-professionals, Last visited: 13-08-2015

iii. Rabobank Young Professional landing page: http://www.raboworkx.nl/nl/ict/young-

professional-programme-it, Last visited: 13-08-2015

D. List of Figures

Figure 1: The Value Chain by Porter (1985) .............................................................................. 6

Figure 2: Brand Relationship Spectrum by Aaker & Joachimsthaler (2000) ............................ 15

Figure 3: HR Business Partnership by Ulrich (1998) ................................................................. 36

35

E. List of Tables

Table i: The VRIO Framework adapted from Barney (1995) ...................................................... 8

Table ii: Generations adapted from McCrindle (2003) ............................................................ 10

Table iii: Brand Separation Model by Aaker & Joachimsthaler (2000) .................................... 17

Table iv: Number of interviewed employees per company ..................................................... 37

36

Appendix A – HR Business Partnership Model by Ulrich (1998)

In his article Ulrich suggest there are five (5) competitive challenges for today’s

organisations, being: Globalisation, Profitability Through Growth, Technology, Intellectual

Capital, and Change, Change, and More Change. (Ulrich, 1998) and suggest that in order to

develop the capabilities of dealing with these challenges the HR team has to play a key role.

Then Ulrich then suggest the setup of the HR function

to be changed to contain the following four (4) roles

which HR must perform, being:

1. Strategic Partner; Aligning the HR processes

with business strategy

2. Change Agent; Embracing change & build

capacity to capitalize on change.

3. Administrative Expert; Optimisation of current

processes to be better, faster, and cheaper.

4. Employee Champion; Keeping employees

engaged and committed to the organisation.

(Figure 3: HR Business Partnership by Ulrich (1998)) Ulrich considers all four (4) tasks to be

essential in the he HR mandate and summarizes this as the following equation:

Business Partnership = Strategic Partner + Change Agent + Administrative Expert + Employee

Champion

Changes to the HR function / structure would also require a change in behaviour and

knowledge of the HR professional which should start to focus on the value their work creates

to the business. Of course HR cannot change itself without support of the business,

therefore Ulrich suggest (senior) management should change their expectations of HR and

change their attitude towards the HR staff. (Ulrich, 1998)

Figure 3: HR Business Partnership by Ulrich (1998)

37

Appendix B – Tables

Company / Seniority Avanade YSE / Kirkman HR Director(s) 1 1

HR Staff 3 (none)

Alumni (former Young Professional)

1 2

Young Professionals 4 1 Table iv: Number of interviewed employees per company

38

i http://www.avanade.com/nl-nl/press-releases/avanade-top-employer-europa-en-top-employers-ict-

2015-page ii https://www.nl.capgemini.com/werken-bij-capgemini/jouw-carrierepad/young-professionals iii http://www.raboworkx.nl/nl/ict/young-professional-programme-it