Why Training Is the Key to Getting the Most from Millennial Employees

• November 9, 2021

I’m a baby boomer-aged guy. When I look back at the first jobs I took when I was fresh out of college, I realize that overall, my demands and expectations were ridiculously low by today’s standards. I took a job, got a copy of the employee handbook, took it home, and read it while I ate dinner. Training, if there was any, was minimal. In my first weeks on the job, I actually expected to feel ignorant and unskilled. It seemed normal for me to bumble around and make mistakes while I learned the ropes.

And when it came to getting ahead in my new company, I expected to discover the secrets of success through trial and error. Nobody ever told me, “Here’s what we expect from you” or, “Here are the skills we want you to show us if you want to move ahead.” They only told me, “You just made a mistake, don’t do it again.” And every now and again, somebody would call me into an office and say, “We’re giving you a promotion,” usually without telling me why. I went home and celebrated with my family. But why had it happened?

In short, working and building a career in those days was more like toiling away in a black box – and people did it happily, without thinking anything was wrong.

Millennials Have Far Different Expectations

Boy, have things changed. Today, most millennial workers would object strenuously to the same kind of conditions that I accepted in my early years, and thought were normal. And if today’s millennials take a new job and discover conditions like those in a new workplace, they are going to start looking for new jobs in a matter of hours.

Ample research documents these changing millennial attitudes. One major study from Gallup, “How Millennials Want to Work and Live,” reports these findings:

• 60% of millennials say that the opportunity to learn and grow on the job is extremely important. In contrast, only 40% of baby boomers feel the same way.
• 50% of millennials strongly agree that they plan to remain in their jobs for at least the next year. That might sound like a big percentage, but 60% of members of all other groups plan to stay in place for at least a year. Baby boomers and others are planning on sticking around, while millennials are weighing their options.

Learning and Training Are Key to Retaining Millennials and Maximizing their Productivity

Findings like those – and you can easily find other research that reports similar findings – document that millennials are more likely to be engaged and to stay on their jobs if they can learn.

In the companies that I have led, I have seen the realities that underlie those statistics. I have also seen first-hand that training is the key to building the kind of work environment that millennials value.

Here are some of the new realities that I have seen, and my beliefs about why they are happening.

• Millennials like to feel capable and confident in their jobs. When I was their age, I was happy to look like a rookie in my early days on a job and to learn needed skills along the way. Millennials do not feel that way. Many think of themselves as leaders – or as leaders who are waiting to be discovered. They want to look good and thrive on being able to confidently contribute from the first day they arrive on the job. The right kind of training – both for new and current millennial employees – makes that happen.
• Millennials are usually skilled students. They like to apply the learning skills they built while they were in school. To them, learning feels as natural as eating three meals a day. As the Gallup study found, they are eager to learn. In contrast, getting baby boomers to believe in training can be a harder sell. They tend to view training as a burden, something they have to endure. Millennials say, “Wow, when can I start?”
• Millennials are tech-friendly. Most of them love to be trained on their mobile phones and tablets, which are the most powerful training options available to many companies today. The result is better knowledge transfer, even to groups of employees who work in multiple or far-flung locations. Baby boomers, in contrast, are more tech-resistant. They are likely to freeze and resist when they hear they are going to be taking company training on their smartphones.

Training Is the Place to Build Millennial Productivity and Retention

A lot of training focuses on teaching needed skills. It should. But training can accomplish a lot more than that if you use it to establish some of the following things that many millennials are looking for:

• Mentoring relationships with their supervisors. Gallup found that 60% of millennials feel that the quality of the people who manage them is extremely important. With that in mind, your training for new employees can set up mentoring, not reporting, relationships between them and their managers. Explain how often check-ins and job reviews with their managers will happen, and what they will cover. (I am a firm believer in frequent check-ins between managers and the employees they supervise, not pro forma reviews that happen every so often.)
• A sense of belonging on an energized and innovative team. This is a bit of a contradiction, but at the same time millennials think of themselves as individualist entrepreneurs, they also expect to be part of an interesting team. Letting millennials get to know their teammates during training, and fostering a sense of team/group identity, can help convince them that they have joined the right organization.
• A well-defined career path. I am a big believer in creating a personalized career development plan for new employees. (The exception being seasonal or other short-term employees who will probably not remain in your employ for long.) Another idea? Enroll new employees in management training programs from their first days on the job. In retail, for example, you can enroll them in training that will enable them to manage their own stores in two years, or after another stated period. Millennials like to know their next steps as they build their careers, and training is a fine place to explain them.

Yes, training is important to millennials. But I encourage you to think of it as more than a chance to teach skills. Millennials are the most energized, skilled, and capable generation ever to enter the workforce. Train them well and they will become your organization’s brightest future.

About Evan Hackel

Evan Hackel, the creator of the concept of Ingaged Leadership, is a recognized business and franchise expert and consultant. Evan is also a professional speaker and author.  Evan is Principal and Founder of Ingage Consulting, a consulting firm headquartered in Woburn, Massachusetts. A leader in the field of training as well, Evan serves as CEO of Tortal Training, a Charlotte North Carolina-based firm that specializes in developing and implementing interactive training solutions for companies in all sectors. To learn more about Inage Consulting and Evan’s book Ingaging Leadership, visit Ingage.net