Drawing from your own experiences with Millennial plan participants — or from the scores of industry studies about them that are released every year — how would you design an education strategy that fits into their world?
Writing in the Fall issue of NAPA Net the Magazine, columnist Jania Stout, co-founder of Fiduciary Plan Advisors at Hightower, offers four suggestions for implementing an education strategy tailored for Millennials.
1. Make it Easy
“If you do in-person meetings, make sure that the sign-up process for these meetings is electronic,” Stout advises. “The old fashion sign-up sheet in the break room is just so 2008; if that is how you go about it, you will find low participation by this generation.” Instead, announce the meetings electronically and allow for a one-click process for signing up for a one-on-one.
Also, automatic enrollment at a minimum of 6% with an auto escalation feature is critical for Millennial participants, Stout believes — they expect their employers to do that for them as a starting point.
2. Address the Topics They Care About
Younger Millennials are worried about paying off student loan debt and want to learn how they can best tackle that debt, says Stout. They also are starting to plan for families and buying houses. “The best way to engage them is to build your communications and education around these topics,” she recommends.
3. Have Fun
“I have found that Millennials are highly competitive. So when the onsite meetings are announced, add some sort of competition to the mix,” Stout advises. For example, she hands out a one-pager and asks employees to check the box on some key questions. They fill these out at the group and one-on-one sessions and turn them in to HR to be entered into a drawing. “This accomplishes two things: It creates a competition with a prize and it gets them to think about a few key points (or at least tries to),” she says.
The checkboxes could be something like, “Did you know the company matches up to 6% of your pay?” or “Did you know that studies show you should be saving between 10-15% of your current pay to be saving appropriately?” If participants check the boxes, at least it means they took a second to read it and maybe even tuck the information away in their minds, Stout says. “And in one-on-one sessions, build in the ability for them to go online and make changes right then and there.”
4. Track Your Success
We all know that in-person meetings take an enormous amount of time and resources. “Why not have a great story to share with your committee — or, even better, with the workforce,” Stout suggests. For example, track the percentage of employees who made a positive change, announce that metric at your committee meetings, and show how it ties back to the committee’s goals.
When something positive happens, encourage your client to share the news with employees. This will accomplish several things, Stout notes. “First, it will show employees that their employer cares about them. And second, any employees who didn’t show up for the group meeting or their one-on-one will see that their peers did; next time, they will want to be part of this good thing.” Remember that Millennials are competitive and don’t like to think that their peers are doing something they aren’t, she says.
Conclusion
Stout’s bottom line: “More so than with any other generation, we have a great opportunity to make a difference in the lives of Millennials. Let’s not look at them as many others do. If we can get them to start saving at an average of 10% now while in their ‘20s, we won’t be having the same conversations with them that we’re now having with Baby Boomers — many of whom haven’t saved enough because they didn’t start early enough.”
In addition to Stout’s regular “Inside Financial Wellness” column, the Fall 2015 issue of NAPA Net the Magazine inaugurates NAPA’s lists of the top women advisors in the industry in four separate categories. Judy Ward also discusses the potential pitfalls of managed accounts, while Nevin Adams debuts his new “Polling Places” column highlighting some readers who shared their experiences with the client firing process. The issue also features insights from contributors Jerry Bramlett, Warren Cormier, David Levine, Brian Graff, Don Trone, Steff Chalk, Joseph DeNoyior and Fred Barstein, along with the debut of columnist Lisa Greenwald Schneider.
To view Adams’ column, click here and select “Millennial Mythbusting.” And to view a pdf of the full 52-page issue, click here.
