According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the current young professionals work group (up to age 35), commonly referred to as “millennials” or “Gen Y’ers”, spends an average of 1.8 years in a job before moving on. At any one time, 60% of this group are looking for new career opportunities while still employed.

Career and lifestyle aspirations are even more important to them than pay or their relationship with their managers. In addition, millennials do not need to be highly dissatisfied with their current job to make a change. If something more attractive comes across their radar screen, in the way of career advancement or lifestyle aspirations, they will leap, regardless of how long they have been with their current employer.

Many companies are confused about how to successfully attract, engage, and retain millennial employees for long enough to train them to take over from aging “boomers”. However, some “early adopter” companies seem to be getting it right by creating a work environment that promotes flexible work-life arrangements and offers career support to address just these issues. Career support in this context includes leadership development, career planning and mentoring.

A cost-effective way for mining companies to provide this type of career support is through the availability of appropriate elearning. Some mining companies already provide elearning as on-demand online courses that can be taken at the employee’s initiative; others provide it as structured programs of online courses with more clearly defined training objectives. Either way, the results can satisfy both employee and corporate requirements.

From the employee point of view, provided the selection of courses is sufficiently large and the quality is acceptable, the benefits include career development, satisfaction of CPD (continuing professional development) obligations and, if the courses are accredited, accumulation of credit towards university programs.

From the corporate point of view, the benefits include improved employee retention, employee knowledge and skills development, and achievement of corporate training objectives.

For more on the topic of employee retention through provision of career support see Stop the Gen Y Revolving Door (B.L. Ware (2014)).

AIG members have access to a dedicated Edumine campus that provides access to the full-range of e-learning resources that Edumine offers.  For more information visit the Edumine Campus page of the AIG web site.  Edumine Campus enrollment is managed through the AIG membership portal.

Simon Houlding
Vice President Professional Development, InfoMine Inc., Vancouver CA.

Simon is responsible for EduMine, the professional development division which provides learning and training programs to the global mining industry. He is a practicing professional engineer and author.

This article was originally published on the Infomine web site www.infomine.com and appears here with permission.