How to Train the Next Generation of Employees: 6 Strategies

Training employees can be an overwhelming experience for many organisations. However, properly training your new set of employees is extremely rewarding for your entire workforce and the growth of the overall organisation. Using innovative training techniques to meet the needs of the younger generation won’t just engage them, but will also help your organisation prepare to be a future-ready workplace.

With the changing face of today’s workforce, it has become important for training and development plans to change too. Keep reading to know some of the top training techniques you can employ to train your young workforce.

Coaching and Mentorship

Next-generation employees take pride in their day to day work and always look for ways to improve in order for their job to feel productive and meaningful. To them, failure is a way of getting better and learning from past mistakes. This is why coaching and mentorship is the best way to train and set them on the path to success.

Designing a detailed coaching and mentorship program allows them to work on a specific set of goals to work towards and fulfil their constant need for connection. Besides, coaching is a great way to keep them motivated and to reaffirm that their work is important for the organisation.

Use the Latest and Updated Technology

The next generation of employees, including millennials and Gen Z, are up-to-date with the latest technological trends and expect the same at their workplace. This is, in fact, one of the most important traits that make them quite valuable for modern companies. 

However, it is important to remember that the latest technology is not just about offering your employees a smartphone or a fast internet connection. For instance,  if your company’s website is not responsive enough or your internal communication platform is outdated,  it’s time to get it updated and make your employees more comfortable and efficient workers.

Develop a Plan

Before making an employee training program for your young workforce, it is important to identify and determine what you want your employees to learn. Failing to do this will waste a lot of time and resources with unstructured training and no outcomes. To make a robust training plan, begin by writing down everything your employees should know. This includes the knowledge and skills they should have to do their jobs successfully.

Further, also ensure to structure the training program well, in a way that it begins with the simplest information and leads up to more advanced training.  Another important aspect here is to identify training gaps and fill them appropriately. For instance, your employee might not understand the what and how of using banner advertising if they do not have a basic idea about backdrops, frames, signs and decals.

Offer Bite-Sized Content

Since millennials and Gen Z employees have grown up surrounded by distractions while they work, they’re most efficient and productive working in short chunks, switching from one task to another as their attention shifts. Although the attention span of this generation of employees is quite short (2-3 minutes at a stretch), they are keen to develop new skills and learn new things.

Therefore, small, bite-sized learning modules are the most effective way of training these employees. This training technique is also called microlearning and comes with a wide range of benefits for employees, including enhanced focus, increased motivation, and a better understanding of the content.

Make Use of Videos for Storytelling

Gen Z and millennials at the workplace love to engage in video content for training and other content consumption purposes. With social media platforms such as Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok being their favourites, they want their training to be visual. Videos are especially useful for online training of such employees, particularly when it comes to instructional and other how-to videos.

Some tips to keep in mind for ensuring that you create meaningful videos for training your Gen-next employees:

• Make sure to create short and quick instructional videos with easily digestible information
• The videos should be relevant and to the point
• They should include images, graphs, and animations
• Make sure to add humour to engage your audience

Use Gamification Techniques

Another excellent training technique for next-gen employees is gamification. Game-based training methods are quite popular among millennials and make it much easier to engage with, understand, and remember the training content. Game-based training involves the use of online games, quizzes, and other competitions to educate the young generation of workers about various aspects of your organisation.

To make it more exciting and engaging, you could even get the employees involved in the development as well as the design of the games and can also introduce rewards for employees that get the highest scores.