Millennials learn and work in a completely different way from their predecessors. Therefore, businesses need to be clued up on what learning trends and strategies will be more effective when considering how to train their staff.
Without effective training that is geared and designed towards offering Millennials an optimum learning experience, businesses will quickly see significant skills gaps arise in the near future.
By 2020, Millennials will account for around one-third of the total workforce, quickly taking up management and senior roles, training needs to happen now to ensure that companies are able to retain and develop their future leaders, while simultaneously fostering cohesion across the board.
Personalised learning experiences
Bespoke courses, which are tailored to your employee's needs, are considered much more valuable than blanket learning materials. When a course or series of training is created in line with data about the learners, the design and content will meet their needs more closely and will be overall more effective.
Understanding the skills that your team needs will remove any unnecessary training which could prove to be a waste of company time, resource and money. Initial research is crucial to building an effective learning strategy which will aim to reduce skills gaps and serve courses that genuinely matter to your workforce.
Peer learning
Sharing ideas and skills is at the core of Millennial learning. After all, this is the generation who are digital natives, who taught themselves to code all in the name of sites such as Myspace and have established a way of working with technology which is incomparable to previous generations.
Millennials have learned a wide range of their skills by sharing information, primarily online, to work collaboratively with others to fuel their own learning. By implementing learning that utilises technology that allows people to share ideas and skills, whether these are critical skills, practical skills or useful advice, a platform that encourages peer to peer learning can increase employee engagement with ideas and allows employees to form better relationships through collaborative thinking.
Value of education
Education is an important arm of talent management and staff retention. Without the prospect of developing, learning and growing in their role, employees will quickly become dissatisfied and are likely to leave the business altogether. By developing your Millennial staff you will also be preparing them to become future leaders, by equipping them with the relevant knowledge and be able to more effectively integrate them into succession plans to ensure the longevity and success of the business.
Learner experience
Finally, the overall delivery and design of the training system need to be aligned with the users' needs and preferences. Where previously employees may have sat in a classroom for a day and listened to lectures and undertaken exams, companies now need to adapt to the more varied needs of the younger generations. Delivery no longer needs to be encompassed in one day or afternoon, with microlearning offering the capability to easily and regularly access training material via smartphones, tablets and laptops.
Through data insights, organisations can better understand the best way to engage with their employees, personalise content and ensure that the delivery method is the optimum way to communicate with this generation.