Vaya Insights
Engaging Millennials: Business Leadership Development With Technology

Involving Millennials in Business Leadership Growth Using Tech

According to the 2017 Deloitte Millennial Survey millennials are expected to make up about 75% of the world’s workforce by 2025.

That means if your organization isn’t adapting your business leadership development approach to millennials, you’ll have a workforce with minimal leadership potential.

But if you’re not focused on millennials, you’re not alone. According to the same survey, nearly 65% of millennials believe their employers aren’t actively developing their leadership abilities.

So how can you take your talented millennial employees and develop them into the leaders of tomorrow? First, we must understand how this generation absorbs information.

According to the American Psychological Association (APA)a hands-on approach helps millennial employees retain information and achieve high levels of performance. This kind of active learning method focuses on employee engagement, using critical thinking skills, applying learned material and asking questions.

Thus your millennial talent development approach should be less formal and more linked to real-life situations.

Traditional learning often takes place in a classroom and is designed around coursework and formal training. Millennials tend to respond more to videos, chat forums and games. In order to engage millennials in leadership development, you must use technology-based learning platforms.

Using Technology As A Platform For Leadership Development

Collaborative Learning

Millennials reach out to others through social media and other channels in order to pick the brains of their generational colleagues when looking for an answer to a question, advice or feedback on an idea.

A workplace social media platform designed to open lines of communication, disseminate information and solicit on-the-spot feedback or advice across the organization will be crucial for engaging this generation.

Attainable Goals

Many employees are put off by the seemingly impossible task of climbing the corporate ladder far enough to reach a true leadership position.

Organizations seeking to develop millennial leaders should present a path to leadership during the recruitment phase with attainable goals and milestones that can be used to chart a path to next-level roles. Use this as a way to attract top talent to the organization and keep them motivated to stay on the path.

Quick Exercises

What is a side effect of having every piece of information available at your fingertips? A short attention span! Millennials tend to be extremely impatient when it comes to finding the information they seek.

Each activity or point of learning should be no more than a few minutes long in order to sustain attention and allow millennials to feel they are learning at a quick enough pace, or else their minds tend to wander.

Millennials use apps, timers and push notifications to build new habits. Try to think of a way to work within this system of learning. After all, leadership development is about learning new competencies and forming new habits that enable you to think, speak and act as a leader.

Jumpstart Leadership Development For Millennials In The Workplace

The Vaya Group’s newly launched Jumpstart™ program is a technology platform built for mass leadership development. It incorporates many elements that have been identified as important for leadership development within the millennial workforce.

What Is It?

Vaya’s virtual coaching process and platform is designed to increase the focus on personal development, reflection and habit-building. It also helps foster greater accountability for the participant and manager through regular progress checks and reminders.

Why Is It Necessary?

We created JumpStart with the goal of making your development a whole lot easier. Development should not just be for high-level executives who are afforded the opportunity to have a high-priced executive coach.

We’re here to help everyone, even individual contributors, turn development goals into habits. Did you know the habitual mind controls 95% of human behavior?  Yet we all know that creating or changing habits is not easy.

For The Participant

Following an assessment, every week participants receive personalized development resources to support their growth against the identified development target. The “Virtual Coach” helps each participant build new habits that are aligned with their top development target.

This process is based on timely research related to behavioral change and learning, which suggests repetition, reflection and refinement of activity are critical to success. Participants can use the tools and processes they learn through this approach to develop new habits, even long after their relationship with us.  

For The Manager

Jumpstart also includes the manager, by drawing his or her attention to the development efforts of the participant.  Often, managers are great at developing skills for the current role but aren’t sure how to help their direct reports develop the behaviors needed to get to the next level.

The manager receives periodic updates and tips that will help them support their direct report and stay updated, engaged and accountable to the process. The manager is also reminded to check in with his or her participant to provide positive reinforcement and acknowledgment.

 

Interested to see what the Jumpstart™ platform can do for your organization’s developing leaders? Speak with one of our experts to find out!  >>Schedule My Consultation<<

BACK TO INSIGHTS
Your employees are your greatest strength. Turn their talent into a competitive advantage.
vaya ebook
FILL OUT THE FORM FOR A DOWNLOAD