In Focus: Education & Training
They do things a little differently nowadays. Kate McDonald looks at the best ways to train the digital generation.
The current crop of youngsters about to graduate from school or university – and tear loose on the fashion industry – should really be called Generation Why rather than being lumped with yet another letter in the alphabet.
This cohort of 18- to 25-year-olds do things a little differently than their predecessors, not only in openly questioning the world as it appears to them but in using tools that even those who still consider themselves young would never have dreamed of.
This generational change doesn’t necessarily mean that they require different methods of education and training than their parents, but the remarkable amount of information at their fingertips – and the speed at which they can access it – is nothing less than a revolution.
For fashion consultant Kate Vandermeer, technology has moved so quickly that PowerPoint presentations could very well be lumped into the rubbish heap now given the derogatory label of “heritage media”.
Last year, Vandermeer gave a series of lectures to RMIT fashion students on trend forecasting and found herself in the unenviable position of having to teach the children of the digital revolution about the online experience while using offline tools.
“I was using PowerPoint to give the lecture but I was talking about the impact of online on trends,” she says. “These students are probably in the best position ever in terms of accessing free trend information, for the first time, on such a wide and varied scale. We had to do some restructuring of the curriculum because it was quite traditional – it hadn’t kept up with the newness of what is going on.”
Vandermeer has recently been asked to join a steering committee setting up a new e-commerce course for RMIT’s TAFE students on the topic of fashion e-tailing.
“What I’m finding is that, particularly in the e-commerce world, so many brands are left behind in understanding online and they don’t feel they should be allocating time to taking a course to learn about how to do it. There is a sense that it’s a fad. It’s not: it’s essential for your working environment.”
Grant Emerson, program director for the Bachelor of Applied Science in Fashion and Textiles Merchandising at RMIT, says that five years ago, e-commerce took up only about three or four per cent of the two-year program.
“It’s now up to around 10 or 15 per cent,” he says. “I suspect in the next two years it will go up even more to nearly a quarter.”
Emerson says RMIT teaches its students two elements of the e-commerce world – a fully integrated general ledger system, combining point of sale right through to stocking and sourcing; and an investigation of what is out there in the online environment.
“That’s not just from the point of view of selling online, but it’s also about communicating with the consumer, so it brings in the Facebooks and Myspaces and all the different mediums where you can advertise and promote and do your guerilla marketing. There are a whole range of activities now that the student needs to have an appreciation of and think strategically about when they look at an online environment.”
And it’s not just fashion students who need to be educated and trained using different tools, but those already in the workforce. Fay Pondif, managing director of retail recruitment and training firm The Retail Space, says the shift in the labour market in the last decade to an overwhelmingly casual and part-time workforce means vocational and workplace training has had to shift as well.
“My workforce is predominantly Generation Y and it is their preference to learn online,” Pondif says. “But at the same time, it is an area we have to be cautious of in that Generation Y tend to absorb a lot of things at the same time and may not be learning as effectively online as we’d like them to. We do need to then follow through online training by testing on the job, by engaging them with what they’ve learned and using some practical experiences in-store.”
Hands-on
Generation Y may have been unfairly tagged with a few stereotypes during the boom time, but some things do seem to be true. According to Pondif, Generation Y is not necessarily motivated by just money.
“[They] need to have a purpose in life and so when they connect with a brand or a company it is for a lot of other reasons as well,” she says. “It might be an ethical policy, a reward structure in place to recognise achievements – it has to be a brand that they relate to. In that regard they are very effective when they are recognised for their efforts.”
Grant Emerson has found that his students, the majority of whom now complete the diploma and then go on to study for a full bachelor’s degree, are particularly useful for the business sector. The second year of RMIT’s diploma involves four weeks’ work experience and degree candidates have the opportunity to do an internship with the likes of Myer in between the second and third year.
“All of their work is done on industry briefs,” he says. “Industry is constantly coming out and reviewing their work, and the thing I love about it, is that industry do get some excellent feedback from the students – they are Gen Yers after all.
“They give some great ideas, particularly in the product development area and in the marketing area. And my teachers, without them knowing it, are actually getting professional development and are seeing exactly what is the current standard. So it is a win-win-win.”
Many of Fay Pondif’s workers are TAFE or university students studying fashion or retail in general. Unlike the past, when brands or retail chains would hire and train its own workforce, these days much of it is outsourced.
Her clients are generally fashion brands and wholesalers who, these days, are so concentrated on managing the brand’s message that workers trained specifically in that brand are required.
“These days ... electronic information can get quite lost in the ether out there so it’s really important that we deliver communications in formats that are effective for them to absorb, and that they are learning and absorbing this knowledge,” she says. “Face to face is critical: it’s a component not only of the certificate courses that we do but also in delivering our clients’ messages to them.”
Networking
Vandermeer has also done some lecturing at the private Whitehouse Institute this year, predominantly in the business of fashion. She uses the internet to source information from free sites such as smartcompany.com.au and smallbusiness.com.au and online publications such as Australian Anthill, Mumbrella and Marketing Magazine.
These tools allow both teachers and students to source information without having to buy expensive textbooks, and to provide discussion points for researching case studies and the like.
One she uses regularly is Levi’s and how that brand is – and has long been – using social media to boost its reach and its message.
“A lot of brands haven’t quite cottoned on to how they can use [tools like] Twitter yet,” she says. “There is a wide group of people who are steering clear because they feel it is a fad as well.”
Levi’s used Twitter to launch a guerilla marketing campaign to direct people to its website – the bait being a free pair of 501s – and Vandermeer often uses this campaign as a case study for her students.
Some things never change, however.
No matter how tech savvy Gen Yers are, they still have to be trained in how to use these tools strategically. Vandermeer is setting up a students’ section on her website, ispystyle.com, mainly because she is often approached for advice on how to get a start in the fashion workforce.
“I’m asked all the time for tips on resumes, tips on how to get into the courses, tips on getting the edge, how to get work experience – that’s a big one.”
Emerson too sees the importance of teaching students to think strategically, and industry is demanding it, he says.
“[Industry says] our graduates are fantastic and they can contribute as soon as they get into the organisation, but they are missing that more strategic understanding.”