5 Tips to Engage Gen Z and Millennial eLearners in 2020 and Beyond [Webinar Recap]

Many organizations have found themselves transitioning to the digital world of learning regardless of whether they were ready or not. However, putting a textbook in a digital format isn’t going to cut it.

If you are looking for ways to engage your learners online and have your business flourish, look to your Gen Z and Millennials learners. In the next 5 years, Millennials will comprise 75% of the workforce, and Gen Z is right behind them. To create a successful eLearning program, you need to consider how you can effectively engage these generations with your learning program.

In a recent webinar, we shared how to level up your existing learning strategy to engage your Gen Z and Millennial eLearners. Here are the highlights:

Tip #1: The Modern Learner is Different

Welcome to 2020 - a time where our learners are more different than ever before. To ensure that your learning program is successful, you need to understand your learner’s needs and preferences first. You can start by getting to know some key facts about the modern learner.

The modern learner is:

• Keen to learn : More learners are looking for options to learn on their own because they aren’t receiving those opportunities from employers. “38% of workers reported having opportunities for learning and growth at their workplace.”
• Distracted: Today’s learners are constantly distracted by today’s technology. The average person unlocks their smartphones up to 9 times every hour.
• Collaborative: Learners are seeking personal and professional networks to obtain information about their industries and professions. Approximately 80% of workforce learning happens on the job interactions with peers, teammates, and managers.
• Overwhelmed: Learners today hardly have time to complete their work assignments, let alone time for training. 41% of the time workers spend time on things that offer little personal satisfaction and do not help them get their work done. 

By understanding the different characteristics of the modern learner, you will be able to reshape your learning strategies to fit your learner’s expectations. 

To do this, it is vital that your learning be more inclusive, decolonized, and effective. Traditional study and exam techniques like rote memorization and multiple-choice tests are not designed with the new generation in mind.

Millennials and Gen Z eLearners are more creative and entrepreneurial, but also more distracted. When evaluating your content for these learners, think about how Millennial and Gen Z learners might like to consume it. Here are some ways to repurpose your content:

• Use the memory palace technique. This method focuses on placing memorable images in a scene that’s familiar to you, and that allows learners to deepen the strength of their visual memory system.
• Turn your content into “bite-sized” content or what online learning professionals call microlearning.
• Transfer content into a blended synchronous and asynchronous model.

Tip #2: Give Your Course a Personality

Out with the textbooks and in with personalized learning. Modern learners are demanding personalized learning experiences, and to meet this need you need to give your course a personality.

A company that does a great job at personalizing the experience: Netflix. Netflix is amazing at curating content that is personalized to what you like. Not only can you personalize your account, however, but their system also recommends movies and tv shows that are similar to your viewing history and rating.

Be the Netflix of your industry and incorporate personalized learning into your learning strategy. Here are a few applications to personalize your learning today:

• Goal Setting: This allows learners to be accountable for the goals that they set towards the beginning of the course. With goal setting on a learning management system, a learner or instructor can set how long they want to study and what date they want to complete their course.
• Adaptive Learning: Through this type of learning, you are able to personalize the learning program. At BenchPrep, we offer an adaptive study plan, which displays course material based on a learner’s mastery and confidence level of the material.
• Discussion Tools: Discussion boards are a great tool to encourage social learning. Learners can pose their questions in discussion to get immediate feedback.

Tip #3: Tap Into Your Community

As we mentioned earlier, today’s learners are collaborative. To improve the learners’ experience with your learning platform, you must have an active community. The best way to build an active learning community is through social learning.

Social learning is the theory that learning occurs through observation of others’ behaviors, values, and attitudes, or direct instruction. Social learning can be difficult when you’re learning online using a self-paced platform. But, the easiest way to overcome this is having an active community that can support each other on-demand.

Incorporating social learning into your learning program doesn’t have to be a gruesome process. There are many communication tools you use everyday that can apply to social learning, too. Some examples include discussion boards, chat features, live videos, polling, gamification, group work, and more!

How Do I Effectively Engage my Gen Z and Millennial eLearners?

Engaging your learning is one of the biggest challenges that many organizations face with their learning programs. Many of these organizations have these tools right in front of them to combat this, however they have to grab that opportunity.

We covered 3 tips to get your young learners to engage, however, there are a few more to consider to have an engaging learning program. Check out the recording from our webinar to discover the last two tips of effectively engaging your Gen Z and Millennial eLearners.