Millennials Surprised by Lack of Training at Work

The “lack of company support for training and development” is the No. 1 most surprising aspect of work in the “real world,” for Millennials, according to the national “Millennial Mindset Study” of 1,200 employed Millennials conducted by online training platform Mindflash.

Eighty-eight percent of Millennials say they are willing to invest personally or sacrifice anything from vacations to coffee habits to train themselves in the skills needed to compete in the workforce today. One in three (31%) of the employed 18- to 33-year-old Americans polled, most of which have at least seven years of work experience, report that while it is tough to keep up with the skills they need to do their job, they seek out training on their own to address this challenge. Only 20% indicated that while it is hard to keep up with the needed job skills, their employers equip them with necessary training opportunities.

According to the survey, the No. 1 piece of advice Millennials have for the college senior class graduating this year—according to nearly 40% of respondents—is “invest in your own skills training to make you as marketable as possible.” This beat out other advice such as “be proactive” (28%), “go in guns blazing” (6%) and “start your own company” (4%).

Despite that more than half (57%) of Millennials report they have managed or currently manage at least one person, there are areas where they want and need help. When it comes to their assessment of their own skills gaps, “project management” (25%) emerged as the top leadership skill that Millennials want to develop, followed by “interpersonal communication” (21%) and “problem solving” (20%).

One area where Millennials strongly assert they thrive in managerial roles, however, is in bringing fresh thinking (26%) and open-mindedness (31%) to the workplace, rating these attributes over technological savvy as the chief benefits of having Millennials in manager roles.

Millennials are also aware that negative stereotypes exist about them. More than one-quarter (26%) say the biggest misconception is “we don’t know how to communicate because we spend too much time with technology,” followed closely by “we’re overconfident and self-centered” and “we don’t want any guidance, training or input.”