The training had just started. It was a nice day outside. Well, at least the sun was shining. It was still around 4C – but in Montreal, Canada, that was considered balmy at this time of year – October.
I was contracted to run a new manager training for young accountants. They’d all assembled, we’d gone through the ground rules, and within no time the IPhones and crackberrys were out.
Generation Y don’t learn the way older adults do. They communicate with each other rapid fire style – in person and through technology.
How to Address Generation Y learning needs.
Because of this style of communicating they have a couple of unique needs in the training environment:
- They need information conveyed clearly and concisely. Hold off on the thick binder; instead opt for short sharp bullet points in a quick reference manual. tab
- They need to be shown how to solve conflicting needs constructively. With so much going on in an; ‘always-on-need-it-now’ world, discerning priorities becomes difficult. The sunny day outside my training was a great metaphor I used to discuss things like delaying gratification and cost/benefit analysis.
- They need to organise and present evidence that supports their solution to a problem. For this new managers training we used a lot of social media tools to research how other industries were tackling some of the issues they were being trained to tackle.
- Gen Y’s prefer blended learning, many of them grew up gaming, so they’ve become experiential learners who prefer learning by doing. I was sure to include lots of the active learning techniques.
- They want an instructor whose engaging, involves them in the learning, inspires them and gives them personal attention when they’re stumped. (Same as us old folks really J)
- Don’t get resistant if they question your information or authority, they grew up questioning and rebelling most of Gen X (we did leave them quiet the mess, after all)
- Get a lot of their perspective on things, they have eyes and ears on lots of issues facing their generation – especially how they’re sold to.
These are just a few of the things we did to spark some good learning. I also talk them for a walk after lunch in the fresh air to keep them awake J
What other strategies have you found that work for engaging and training Gen Y’s?
