Avoid Costly Training Mistakes

A survey by The Economist of over 1100 Millennial employees and 150 managers revealed that 91% of Millennials felt they would spend less than three years in a job before moving on.  Noted author, David Burstein, wrote that it is possible that the Millennial generation will have had 14 jobs by the time they are 38 years of age. This attitude will challenge manufacturers and other technology organizations with extensive training programs and depend on employee retention to grow intellectual property and “know how.”

As noted in an earlier blog titled “Overcoming Obstacles to a Younger Workforce,” a clear business strategy and managerial transparency are essential for attracting younger workers. Commitment to executing the strategy, developing employees, and showing how employees support the strategy are critical to retaining them. Having spent most of their lives in a down economy, Millennials evaluate their opportunity for advancement and employer’s commitment to their development more carefully than their elders did. Communicating a clear career path strengthens employee engagement.

When developing a training strategy, it is important to consider how teaching methods have changed over the last couple decades. As a Boomer, I was very comfortable sitting in a lecture hall building a vast reservoir of knowledge before attempting to solve a real problem. Feedback on how I was doing was limited to two, perhaps three, examinations during the semester. Today learning is more focused on problem solving skills and assumes that all the knowledge details can be grabbed as needed off the Internet.  Students are accustomed to two-way feedback all through the learning process.

My suggestions for a positive employee development program include:

• Structured Orientation – Graduates today starting their first or second job expect some training and orientation. Many organizations lack a resource to plan how an employee is brought into the company. I know from my own experience, there are costs associated with skipping or skimping on orientation.
• Challenge – Younger workers are more schooled in critical thinking than my generation. There is value to assigning trainees a “real” problem and let them figure it out. Younger workers learn better with on-the-job training. “Spoon feeding” information risks losing the trainee’s engagement.
• Autonomy – Self-paced training based on interactive technology has many advantages. Letting trainees control the pace assures that they won’t get bored and makes it possible to receive the instant gratification they wish for.
• Structure the Training Path – The greater the correlation between skill proficiency and compensation, the better. Breaking training into small increments is cost effective for the employer and makes it easier to point to the next step in the employee’s development.
• Appreciate and Encourage – Young workers are accustomed to receiving far more encouragement and monitoring than older managers are accustomed to delivering. In flat organizations, managers might want to assign peer mentors to trainees if the manager cannot allocate the time.

This may seem counterintuitive, but Don Tapscott wrote that, for managers unclear on how to best train the Millennial generation, task them with the problem. They will appreciate the collaboration and you will be pleasantly surprised by what you receive.  Please share your training successes!