I am the training manager for a medium-sized insurance firm and faced with the challenge of engaging young employees during our quarterly compliance meetings. Our veteran people have accepted that these meetings are a necessary evil and learned to endure them. Our twenty-somethings display little patience for the monotony of these sessions. Having endured countless gatherings like these, I can’t say I blame them. But that doesn’t solve the problem. The senior people in the room are growing increasingly irritated with the texting, web-searching, and game-playing being done when they’re supposed to be paying attention. After all, this is a heavily regulated business and the devil is in the details. Our veteran people are getting tired of catching the mistakes of those who weren’t paying attention during these meetings. Solutions? 

For some, the value of these meetings has probably not been reinforced after initial training. They are therefore left to create their own conclusions based on the scuttlebutt around the office. Information of value, like this, requires periodic reinforcement. While you may not be able to fill the compliance sessions with entertainment, you can certainly create some engaging video clips, cartoons and other media that get your point across to the entertainment-demanding young worker.

Baby Boomers have come to accept that these meetings are a necessary evil, as you say. But that said, their resistance to changing the routine may also be inhibiting you and others from introducing new elements into these gatherings. We have all been in too many meetings where the person conducting the training drones on for fear of missing a provision for which the firm is responsible. The reality is that the traditional reading of compliance documents for the purposes of training has always been miserably ineffective. But the Boomers have found a way to mentally compartmentalize it and the Millennials are rebelling. That’s understandable.

Simply asking someone with more charisma and platform presence to explain these policy changes can make a considerable difference. You might introduce relevant cartoons at the beginning and ends of the sections to liven up the environment. Allow more time for group analysis and ask more provocative questions that stimulate discussion (and a few smart-ass comments that make people laugh). Finally, you might try walking the room occasionally while this training takes place. In spite of the fact that this generation is stimulation-dependent, they still know that using these devices is inappropriate and will put them down if they are being watched.

Then there is how these meetings are perceived by the rank and file. Off-hand comments and amusing remarks do nothing but reinforce the frustration and ineffectiveness of these sessions. While it’s probably impossible to prevent veteran employees from making snarky remarks about these sessions, you might remind them of the impact they’re having on the perceptions and attitudes of young colleagues. They can’t have it both ways – making fun of compliance sessions and expecting their junior co-workers to act respectfully in these meetings.