Training Generation Y

Here’s the good news: you do not have to turn every- thing (or anything really) into a computer game to plug into Gen Yers’ learning needs. But you really should make the effort to get them the technology they are so comfortable and adept at using.

There is so much information produced in a day in any area of expertise that Gen Yers’ default presumption is that nobody could possibly learn all that information, even after studying for one hundred years. Given the pace of change, in- formation becomes obsolete so fast that it seems less important how much you know or have known, and more important how quickly you can learn new things and put them into action.

Gen Yers want the latest and greatest technology. But it’s not just a desire for the coolest toy. It’s like breathing. It’s their connection to the larger information environment. For Gen Yers, the information technology imperatives are simple:

• Constant connectivity with whomever they want
• Immediate access to whatever information they want
• Total customization of their information environment
• The ability to learn from and collaborate with experts in real time

Gen Yers have high expectations that their employers will provide them with the latest and greatest technology, and they complain bitterly when they don’t get the tools they ex- pect.

What Gen Yers want from technology-based learning is not depth and wisdom, but rather to fill skill and knowledge gaps that slow them down in their daily work. One Gen Yer told me, "I laid out some cash of my own to get the handheld I need to be effective. I have tried to get reimbursed, and I’ll keep trying. But the thing is, I can do my job so much better and so much easier with the hardware I got myself that it’s worth it even if they never pay up."

They know what’s out there, and they want to be able to use it. Gen Yers want to learn what they need to learn when they need to learn it, not because they are lazy and not be- cause they have short attention spans. To them, Web-based search technology, online resources, social networking, and wiki tools are everyday tools like the telephone. When you tell them that they won’t have access to those tools to fill skill and knowl- edge gaps all day long, it’s like you are telling them to work in the Stone Age. Imagine if someone told you in the early 1990s that you would have to use carbon paper to keep copies of your documents. That’s what it sounds like when you tell Gen Yers you don’t want them to use the tools available to them.

Here’s a story I was told by several people at a large insurance company. It seems that a young hotshot Gen Yer in the marketing department, I’ll call him Barry, had been given a temporary assignment for several months—and a BlackBerry to use during this assignment. But when the temporary assign- ment ended, Barry was asked to turn in his BlackBerry. Hoping that the whole thing would be forgotten in such a large com- pany and that he would be left with his treasured BlackBerry, Barry ignored those requests. Not long after, Barry found him- self in a meeting with his boss and several senior managers (all of them armed with BlackBerrys because of their senior posi- tions). At some point, an important question came up before the group that fell into the purview of Barry’s boss, who de- murred, saying he would have to look up the answer after the meeting and get back to everybody. Meanwhile, Barry began researching the question in earnest, tapping away on his Black- Berry. Before the meeting ended, Barry raised his hand and offered a detailed answer to the important question that had been put to his boss. As one person in attendance at the meet- ing said, "We were all very impressed. Suffice to say, we de- cided that Barry could keep that BlackBerry."

This is the Gen Yers’ information environment. With search engines and menu-driven information systems, anyone can find multiple answers from multiple sources to answer any question in a heartbeat. Shared work product libraries take typi- cal search technology to a whole new level by providing instant quality vetting. With access to a shared work product library, employees can avoid reinventing the wheel by accessing past high-quality work product, which can be tapped for quick learn- ing as well as lifted and reused to jump-start similar projects. Wiki technology is the ultimate collaboration facilitator by ena- bling different individuals to contribute to a work product from remote locations on their own time. Social networking allows anyone to build mutually rewarding relationships with people of similar interests—inside the company or outside—regardless of geography or other boundaries. Instant messaging means any- one can ask anyone they "know" anything at any time. Imagine a mind-set in which these tools—and the corresponding con- nectivity, immediacy, constant access, and total customization— are taken for granted. The only question is, What are you doing to facilitate Gen Yers’ use of these tools to increase their effec- tiveness at work?

Put the tools in their hands, and watch them fill one tiny information gap at a time in real time. This is the high-tech analogue to learning one task at a time. With access to the technology they know and love, Gen Yers will fine-tune and nuance their on-the-job learning in ways that might shock and delight you.

Especially when they are new on the job, Gen Yers are eager to identify problems that nobody else has identified and solve problems that nobody else has solved. They want to im- prove what’s already there, and they want to invent new things.

The more you encourage Gen Yers to think about their work—-whatever that work might be—the more engaged they will be. The more you encourage them to learn while they work, the better they will do their jobs. Whether it’s high-tech learning or low tech, help them channel their learning directly into their work instead of shooting down their ideas and damp- ening their enthusiasm. If you hire someone to unload boxes from a truck and that person wants to be an ideas guy, you need to get that individual to focus his thinking and learning on how to better unload boxes from the truck. If you hire someone to dig a ditch, get that individual to focus on how to dig that ditch better. And so on.

"As soon as they walk in the door, I get them to make an individualized learning plan and keep a learning journal," said one smart manager. “They map out their responsibilities, and for each responsibility, I ask them to make a list of learning re- sources. Those resources can be books, people, Web sites, or really anything else. That alone has yielded some really impres- sive results. Once they’ve made that plan, I require them to set learning goals for themselves directly related to their specific responsibilities and journal their learning efforts, how they’ve tapped each learning resource, what they’ve learned and how they’ve used that to improve their performance."

Does this approach work? "They love it," the manager told me. "They get really creative with their learning plans and really get into those journals. I think it improves their perform- ance. The ones who get into it tend to be the most successful— not just working for me, but after they move on." She explained that this approach has particularly helped those trainees— knowledge workers, by any definition—who were always burst- ing with ideas, suggestions for changes, and improvements for their own responsibilities and those of others. Rather than get- ting frustrated by their enthusiasm, this manager chose to chan- nel it: “I started encouraging them to also keep track of their good ideas:

"When you have an idea, write it down, sit on it for a couple of weeks, and then revisit it. If it still looks like a good idea to you, think about what it might take to implement it. Do a little research, then make a quick project plan.’ This way they are not throwing at us every idea that pops into their heads. I’m taking their ideas seriously, so they take them more seriously. And don’t write them off too quickly, because sometimes they come up with great ideas."
When they come in the door, Gen Yers want to hit the ground running. By training them one task a time, giving them the technology tools they need to be fast and efficient, and help- ing them focus their energy and ideas on the tasks at hand, you’ll be able to plug into their enthusiasm and keep their excite- ment going past their first day at the job.