Do Millennials Learn Better on Mobile Devices

When you look at organizations today, majority of their workforce is comprised of millennials. Born amidst the technological boom, these millennials are quite proficient in the use of modern technology. In order to train them, enterprises have to adopt training techniques that they are comfortable with i.e., mobile devices. But with mobile devices being such a multi-functional tool, is it really a good training delivery and learning platform? Before we find out whether millennials learn better on mobile devices, let us first understand who these millennials are.

Millennials are people aged between 18-34. For many people out there, technology is something that they encountered quite later in life, perhaps in their teenage years or post that. But millennials grew up with technology all around them. Kids as young as 2-3-year-old have mobile based learn-and-play devices designed for them. Contrary to the popular belief that youngsters, especially millennials, are a laid-back lot, they are in fact more hardworking and goal-oriented than their previous generation. They know their goals and work hard to achieve it. If you can convince your employees that your company will shape a better future for them by providing learning and career development opportunities, they will stay with your company for a longer duration. In order to stay at par with the rising trends and to empower your learners, L&D teams must develop mobile based content for employee training.

Here are some reasons which prove that millennials learn better on mobile devices:

Earlier, training was limited only to the training rooms. That’s because of lack of portable training material. There are training manuals and booklets available, but you can’t really carry them with you everywhere. But today, people are able to carry an entire library of books with them. This has been made possible by developing mobile-first content.

Designing mobile-friendly content for enterprise training makes it easier for employees to refer to the learning material anytime. This is the biggest advantage of delivering training on mobile based devices. It ensures that employees have access to the learning material wherever they are. The reason why millennials learn better on mobile devices is because they always carry a mobile device with them, and thus have immediate access to the content all the time.

With internet companies coming up with amazing plans and offers, almost everyone can afford an internet connection. But, there still is a possibility that people might face interruptions in their network connection. Hence, enterprises create training modules that can be saved on the devices so that employees are not affected by poor internet connectivity. They can download the content and read them later, thus giving 24×7 access to training content.

Millennials are part of a generation that does not like to waste their time and would like to do something productive even during their free time. When you look at the millennial crowd, you would mostly find them with earphones plugged into their ears, probably listening to some music or a podcast. So, if you include the read aloud feature in your training module, it would enable them to listen to the training material in their free time. They could listen to it while driving, waiting for the bus, coffee breaks etc. Some people are better at retaining information when they hear it from someone, and with mobile content, employees can read as well as listen to the training content, providing visual and auditory learning experience.

Our elders did teach us the value of sharing, but social media drove that message home clearly. Your employees, being part of the millennial generation, like to share content that they find important or relevant. And the social sharing feature lets them do that. It enables them to pass on information so that others can benefit from it. They can share content and links with their colleagues, allowing them to collaborate with each other. Mobile devices make networking quite easy. There are online forums where the employees can have discussions with other staff and managers on various topics. They can all connect even outside the workplace, which is good for employee engagement.

Millennials have a habit of displaying glimpses of their life on social media, where they put up their achievements and triumphs for people to view and appreciate. In case of corporate training, gamification is a growing trend which is being used to motivate employees to perform better at their workplace. It includes rewarding trainees with tokens of recognition when they complete a task. When employees are rewarded for exceptional contribution to their work, they usually like to show these accomplishments on social media. Being a part of the gaming generation, employees tend to have a competitive attitude and try to achieve the highest points in every task assigned. Providing an opportunity to showcase their achievements to others only uplifts their confidence and encourages them to perform even better next time.

Millennials gave a boost to mobile culture and everything that followed- mobile apps, interactive games, social media, online videos etc. And that is the reason why enterprises are keen to develop training content embedded with multimedia elements. Of all the online content that is consumed daily, videos comprise a major part of it with 55% of people watching videos online every day. Video training gained popularity as the most effective form of training because of its recall and retention value. It helps them stay engaged with the content. Apart from videos, there are audio files and graphic illustrations which are included in the training content to capture the employees’ attention.

Millennials are said to be an impatient lot, more so because they are used to getting things done quickly. They have all the information at their fingertips. Why should corporate training be any different?

With mobile devices in hand, your employees no longer have to search for reference materials in a stack of booklets and manuals or track the trainer to explain a concept. With the help of hyperlinks embedded into the course module, employees can go to relevant links for more information. Not only that, as we mentioned in the earlier point, people mostly have 24×7 access to internet connection. So, employees can look for more information on the internet. With so many supporting materials available, employees will have more information with them to support them in their corporate journey.

Millennials get bored easily with the attention span of people gradually decreasing. How do you manage to keep employees interested in the mobile training content when they might be so tempted to access their social media or some other content online? They have a plethora of content available for them to read and watch on the internet. That is why interactivity made its way into corporate training content. Simple things like drag and drop and click and reveal etc., can help them stay focused and engaged in the training content by letting them interact with the training material.

You might hardly ever see a millennial without a mobile device. People today have a habit of checking their mobile devices very often. Americans are viewing their smartphones more often than ever before, on average 52 times per day. With people gazing into their phones so often, enterprises are utilizing this opportunity by delivering training content on mobile devices. With the increasing number of millennials joining the corporate sector, L&D teams must design their learning strategies in accordance with the new mobile learning trend. The number of interactivities and the ease of accessibility makes it a perfect platform for delivering training and instant learning, hence proving that millennials learn better on mobile devices. So, better take advantage of this trend and use it effectively to train your employees.