Lidl’s graduate trainee programme is packed full of added value skills building, training, and leadership development.
Recruitment for it takes place each year and places are highly coveted. That’s not just because it offers a fast-track path to a professional career and a salary of €44,000, depending on your role. It’s also because the graduate programme timetable has been carefully developed to ensure it offers the best possible blend of support, development and real-world experience.
It’s something that Terry Berry, Lidl’s senior talent management specialist, sees year after year, as each class of high performing graduates comes on board.
Each year just 18 graduates are accepted on to the programme.
RM Block
Successful applicants enter the programme at the beginning of the academic year, in September, with an intensive week-long induction.
“The first week is all about introducing them to Lidl, bringing our graduates to welcome events and delivering presentations about the business and its operations globally,” says Berry.
During induction week graduates receive a personalised training plan for the next 18 months, so they know exactly what to expect from start to finish.
After induction, each graduate is introduced to the department they applied for, which could be anything from sales and logistics to construction, marketing and IT, to name just a few.
Over the course of the programme, graduates take part in bespoke award-winning training workshops that cover subject matter such as building resilience. These workshops help them build the capacity to work in a fast-paced retail environment.
“It’s about not being afraid to fail, looking at the culture of our business, and providing them with tools and tips to ensure they manage stress and really look after themselves,” Berry says.
Being part of Lidl is more than just to the day-to-day. Colleagues get the opportunity to volunteer to have a real impact on their local community through engaging with Lidl’s official charity partners, Family Carers Ireland and Age NI.
“Every year our graduates set a fundraising target for our charity partners and are tasked with coming up with unique and engaging fundraising ideas to reach that target. It’s a great way for them to contribute to the overall culture of the organisation and to have a positive impact on the communities we operate in,” Berry says.
As with everything learned throughout the programme, it’s all about ensuring graduates bring their knowledge to life through practical projects with real life responsibility and application.
That includes a day of team-building exercises, designed to help them bond.
Back to work
Once induction is over, every graduate goes to work in a Lidl store. “We start them in uniform and provide step-by-step guidance while they get stuck in and learn all aspects of the work involved,” Berry says.
Over the next three months they are trained up to deputy store manager level, learning about administration and rostering, before going on to shadow a store manager, learning how to do everything from ordering stock to hiring and managing people.
Throughout the entire programme graduates are each given three ‘buddies’ who act as mentors, including a graduate from the previous year’s class, a manager, and a senior executive, to ensure they are fully supported.
That brings the timetable to Christmas and, when they return in the New Year, it is to their chosen specialism.
During this phase of the programme, graduates are each assigned real-world projects to drive and deliver. It comes with regular practical training to help, including project management.
“Every two months we provide graduates with a different suite of training workshops, including subjects like presentation skills,” Berry says.
Personal development programmes help them understand their strengths and weaknesses as leaders, identifying any blind spots they might have, and gaining an understanding of their own personality type, to help them succeed in the workplace.
Participants also benefit from leadership skills building, including modules such as leading through change, conflict management, and negotiating.
At the end of the programme there is a graduation ceremony, which includes acknowledgement of the amount of money the class has raised for charity.
While very many Lidl graduates are offered a full-time role in the company, those who don’t stay on leave with a portfolio of highly transferable skills and a CV packed with real-world results.
Class of ‘24
Securing a permanent role with Lidl is Cathal Ryan’s goal. The Dubliner, who has a degree in social policy and sociology from UCD and a Master’s degree in human resources from UCD’s Smurfit Business School, is currently finishing up his Lidl graduate programme.
Ryan had looked at a number of graduate programmes, including some of the biggest companies in the country, but Lidl’s marketing campaign caught his attention.
“They always emphasised the idea of responsibility and of offering a great career path, and that really attracted me,” says Ryan.
He spent his first three months in a store near his home, in Stillorgan. “After that my first rotation in head office was with the HR regional manager in Newbridge.”
While there, the focus of his training was employee relations and employee wellbeing initiatives.
Ryan then came back to head office to work with the talent acquisition team, learning about the recruitment cycle, and even helping to screen candidates. It’s how he knows first-hand what Lidl is looking for: “hardworking people who are able to multitask and get stuck in.”
Ryan has since moved into talent management and working on learning and development activities, which is fitting. “All the way through we are given time for really crucial training sessions that help us out throughout the programme. It was all very useful,” he says.
All in all, his experience of the Lidl graduate programme has been nothing but positive. “Thanks to the training plans we were given, we knew exactly what we were going to be doing from day one. It’s just great to have that kind of structure,” he says.
He now hopes to graduate from theLidl graduate programme to a proper Lidl career.
“I know that if you have high potential and you’re willing to work, Lidl is willing to invest in you and give you good opportunities,” he says. “For graduates it’s just a very good place to kickstart your career, with real life projects that actually make an impact.”
To find out more and apply see lidl.ie.
