Multigenerational Training Workforce: A Comprehensive Guide

Viren Kapadia February 01, 2023
Multigenerational Training Workforce: A Comprehensive Guide

Training is one of the most effective ways to attract and retain good employees. Organizations must invest in a good learning management system (LMS) that allows the learning and development (L&D) teams to design and deploy courses, track progress, and upgrade employee skills. There are various training programs for employees. One of them is generational training.

What is Generational Training?

Organizations consider themselves a family, and like every family, the organization has people from multiple generations working together. Each generation has its quirks, work culture and ethics, ideas, and expectations. Bridging the gap between them and facilitating collaboration can be a challenge. That's where generational training helps. Generational training helps the L&D team build a multi-generational workplace by training different age groups to understand each other and work together towards a common business goal. Generational workplace training can help employees understand each other's strengths, build strong communication, and facilitate collaboration.

Who Should Attend Millennials in The Workplace Training?

With employees from the baby boomer generation retiring and millennials forming a large portion of the workforce, organizations must conduct generational differences training to prepare the workforce for diversity. More importantly, it's important to empower this large workforce with the right skills and competencies to enable them to achieve business goals. Organizations must conduct regular millennial-in-the-workplace training for professionals who lead a multi-generational workforce, especially millennials, and who want to learn more about managing generational diversity at the workplace. There are various ways to engage millennials. Use those tactics to engage the largest workforce of the organization effectively.

The Three Things to Consider When Training a Multi-generational Workforce:

Although generational training's purpose is to bridge gaps between employees, trainers must consider the following three things while planning it.

  1. Focus on career growth
  2. The career goals differ for employees across all age groups. However, everybody has a common goal of growing in their career. L & D leaders must understand this and plan the training programs around these goals. The training programs must encourage development at all stages. For example, the training programs at the entry level will teach employees things related to their position. The mid-level programs prepare the employees for promotions and career growth. The advanced levels aid the employees in learning the current trends related to their skills. Organizations must invest in a collaborative learning platform to help managers and employees set individualized learning goals and career paths and aid their growth.

  3. Protect and leverage institutional knowledge
  4. As the baby boomer generation retires from the workforce, organizations must ensure that the institutional knowledge collected over the years is preserved and transferred to new employees. Organizations must create training programs that encourage employees to document the institutional wisdom accumulated over the years before they exit and use tools to facilitate knowledge sharing across the organization. Organizations could also seek assistance from experienced employees to design the courses and spread the wisdom before they leave.

  5. Promote digital literacy
  6. Everybody may not be digitally-savvy. A baby boomer, for instance, might not be comfortable with online training programs as millennials or Generation Z. Organizations should design programs that are accessible to every group. The only way to do that is by promoting digital literacy. Legacy LMS is not user-friendly. People with limited technological knowledge may face difficulty in using it. Organizations must invest in modern LMS platforms like GyrusAim that facilitate easy user adoption and quick implementation and give employees a walk-through on using them.

Tips on How to Make your Workforce Training Valuable

The major purpose of cross-generational awareness is to overcome the challenges of working with different generations. Hence, the training's messaging and theme must be relevant to everyone. Here are a few tips trainers can follow to make multi-generational workforce training effective.

  1. Understand your audience:
  2. Know the audience in advance and plan the training and agenda accordingly. For example, Is the training for the baby boomer generation, or is it for millennials?

  3. Identify specific objectives:
  4. To optimize training, organizations must know the objective. For example, will the training solve any specific workplace issues, or will it bridge the gap between multiple generations? It will enable the trainers to build the course accordingly.

  5. Keep the setting in mind:
  6. Disruptions in AV settings or software problems can ruin the training experience. Trainers must know the settings in advance, troubleshoot the issues, and ensure a smooth experience for the employees.

  7. Set an agenda and share it!:
  8. Training will be ineffective if employees don't know the agenda. They must know how the training would benefit them and what they will learn. Share the agenda and the timeline with employees in advance to allow them to plan their schedules accordingly.

  9. Innovative ways to break the ice:
  10. Training cannot be a passive activity. Think of innovative ways to break the ice between the employees. For example, ask the employees to introduce themselves in a fun way. The objective is to remove awkwardness among the employees.

  11. Let's talk a little more:
  12. Avoid monologues with the employees. Keep the discussion interactive and encourage employees to ask questions, share ideas, and have thought-provoking discussions with others.

  13. Managing the "Talkers":
  14. Sometimes an employee could become over-enthusiastic and monopolize the conversations. Trainers must manage the talkers and ensure that other employees get to express their opinions and ideas.

  15. Time to play!:
  16. Everybody loves games! Arrange multi-generational activities in which everyone can participate. The objective is to break the ice and improve engagement among employees.

  17. Use nostalgia to your advantage:
  18. Nostalgia can trigger conversations and active participation among employees. Use it to your advantage by discussing pop culture or playing quizzes and games that could remind the employees about their youth.

  19. Practice, Practice, Practice:
  20. Practice is the secret sauce of a successful trainer. They practice their material in advance to engage with their employees more and avoid looking at the notes.

Generational Differences Trainer, Coach, Writer, and Speaker

An ideal generational differences training must cover the following sessions to improve collaboration among all generations.

  • How to work with and lead a multi-generational workforce.
  • Understanding Gen Z and Millennials in the workplace.
  • Understanding the Baby boomers and the silent generation.
  • Understanding the leadership opportunities Gen X is creating.
  • Understanding the generational similarities and differences between Boomers, Gen X, and now Gen Z.
  • How to motivate and mentor an intergenerational staff to peak performance.
  • Understanding the leadership styles that work best.
  • How to manage people from generations older or younger than you.
  • How to improve office collaboration, creativity, and innovation by embracing generational diversity in the workplace.
  • How to work with employees from diverse cultural backgrounds diverse cultural backgrounds.
  • How to improve job satisfaction and employee engagement, and reduce workplace turnover.

Five Generations in the Workplace Chart

generatiopn-in-the-workplace-chart

Image source: Employee Experience Magazine

Driving Factors of the Five Generations

  1. Generation Z / Gen Z
  2. Also called digital natives, Generation Z has always been surrounded by smartphones, computers, and social media for their entire lives. They are also more socially aware due to extensive social media exposure. Gen Z is a perfect fit for organizations undergoing digital transformation.

    Gen Z is reeling under crushing student loan debt. Hence, they are looking for jobs that offer good salaries, support with student debts, project-based financial incentives, and more. That is their main driving factor.

    Besides that, here are a few driving factors that organizations must know while hiring and retaining Gen Z talent:

    • Gen Z can work well in a diverse team of people from different ethnicities, races, and nationalities.
    • Nearly 48% of Gen Z have applied to job opportunities found on social media. Websites are popular too. Organizations must invest in building a solid digital presence to attract talent.
    • To retain talent, give them access to the latest technologies and devices. Old technologies and devices could quickly bog them down. They will eventually lose interest in their job.
    • Gen Z chooses stability in jobs. They don't move to another company for better benefits. They also want more flexibility in working hours.
    • They prefer working in an organization that promotes collaboration and believes in leading by example.

  3. Millennials
  4. According to Deloitte's research, millennials will form 75% of the global workforce by 2025. Millennials are as digitally-savvy as Gen Z. They can grasp technology better than previous generations. The following are the driving factors for hiring and retaining millennials:

    • Millennials look for a deep sense of purpose and want to revolutionize the industry. Organizations must support them in this endeavor by removing all possible obstacles.
    • They expect organizations to judge them by the quality of their work and not by the hours they log.
    • On-site daycare, skill-based training, and mortgage assistance are great driving factors for attracting the right talent.
    • As millennials are tech-friendly, features like LinkedIn-based profiling and digital application tracking can help attract them.

  5. Generation X
  6. Generation X grew up in an era when computers became a part of every home. They are as technologically adaptive as Millennials and Generation Z. Here are a few driving factors for hiring and retaining Gen X.

    • Although Generation X is digitally-savvy, there prefer face-to-face interactions more than digital ones.
    • They want to feel valued and expect organizations to recognize their industry experience while hiring and retaining them.
    • As most have families to take care of, work-life balance is one of the key criteria for choosing an organization.
    • Generation X responds to online recruiter profiles that are responsive.

  7. Baby boomers
  8. Baby boomers may not be as digitally-savvy as the subsequent generational workforce, but they have strong work ethics and are known for their loyalty. Here are a few driving factors to know while recruiting and training them:

    • This generation prefers traditional recruitment methods and finds jobs through advertisements, referrals, word-of-mouth messages, etc. So, if the goal is to hire people from the baby boomer generation, use traditional recruitment methods.
    • Baby boomers want organizations to value their contributions. Celebrate their contributions publicly through regular award ceremonies, etc.
    • They prefer face-to-face interactions more than digital ones.
    • As baby boomers are loyal to organizations, provide them attractive perks and benefits, and job security.
    • Consider giving them the responsibility of coaching and mentoring the younger workforce to bridge the gap between them.

  9. Silent generation
  10. The silent generation is not comfortable using technology. So, use conventional methods to hire and retain them.

    • Give them an option for pension and a seamless transition to retired life
    • Prioritize personal 1:1 interactions as they value it a lot
    • Allow them to coach and mentor the younger generation on timeless skills

We Offer Modern LMS To Fulfill Your Multi-Generational Training Needs

Most legacy learning management systems are not scalable, have limited capabilities, and do not provide advanced value-add features like analytics. It can hinder the progress of building a thriving multi-generational culture. GyrusAim is a modern LMS that allows organizations to create individual development plans and provide learning courses to their employees in all possible formats – classroom, webinars, e-learning videos, and documents, internal or external. We partner with organizations to analyze their unique needs and guide them through planning, configuring, migrating, integrating, and customizing the system.

Conclusion

The multi-generational workforce statistics indicate 89% of professionals believe a multi-generational workforce is essential for an organization's success. However, only 10% of organizations are prepared for this trend. The baby boomers and Generation X have the conventional wisdom of how the industry works, and the Millennials and Generation Z are willing to experiment and embrace technologies to pivot the business. Hence, organizations must combine the best of both worlds to stay ahead of the competition. Bridging the gap and generational training and development is essential to encourage a collaborative culture among employees of all ages.

If you are looking for a modern and intelligent LMS to build multi-generational training courses, contact us. We will be happy to help.