At a time when TikTok dominates social media platforms for engagement of Gen Z, it’s worth thinking about how this might translate to better workplace training for this demographic, many of whom are now at the beginning of their working lives.
In my research I uncovered a core reason why product training is no longer effective: brands are still employing an old-school system that often involves sitting in a room watching a video for an hour before hearing the rep talk about products. Retailers often don’t have time to have their team members attend these sessions and, for those who do make it, retention of information is very poor. It’s also a boring way to learn.
Here are three ways you should rethink your workplace training for Gen Z.
Value mindset
You need to understand that Gen Z has grown up in a world where so many career paths are available. Why would they work for you when they can earn more from a Shopify side hustle? They’re actually in a position where there are many alternatives out there, not just yours. I’m always thinking about how we can add value for the frontline team members.
Two main factors in staff retention are financial remuneration and further education. Offering training certainly ticks the further education box; you can also link promotions and raises to learning to create a positive advancement cycle that makes them satisfied and feel valued.
The value mindset might include setting up their future career path, even if that might not necessarily include your organisation. This is often overlooked in industries such as retail and hospitality where young workers are seen as temporary team members, but you can encourage great performances with a value mindset that appreciates their talents while they’re with your business. Offering soft-skills training is also a fantastic opportunity to equip, encourage and support your team to help them develop their skills further in areas such as communication, teamwork and critical thinking.
Ultimately taking the time to provide this training will only benefit your business and help your team feel empowered.
Short video
TikTok is doing much better than other video sites on Gen Z engagement, and that is because the content is shorter and more engaging. A lot of legacy systems are stuck on the 2010 video theory. Remember MOOCs? Massive online open courses from leading global education platforms were touted to be game-changers in education. Yet, they’re only reporting a five per cent completion rate!
In my experience, this is often because when individuals access a course and notice a 20-minute video, they think, “I don’t have 20 mins, I do have 20 seconds, though” and, unfortunately, many will never make the time to watch it. I don’t even think micro education (five-minute) videos are short enough – for us, it’s nano education.
Incentive to learn
This sounds obvious, but you need to give Gen Z a genuine incentive to learn. All the engaging content in the world isn’t going to help if they don’t know why they’re training and aren’t, at the bare minimum, being paid to undertake training. Being able to embed that training with incentives – like bonuses for acing a quiz based on the course content, or increased sales commission on products they’ve studied – should be considered.
The eldest Gen Z-ers, now in their mid-20s, are at the beginning of their careers, and many are likely to be in industries where staff attrition is high. Effective training that is short, fun and engaging is essential for businesses to secure a win-win-win: rapid training of team members to increase their job satisfaction, an educated workforce for the business which is linked to higher sales, and better service for customers by an informed team.
