The 5-second summary: The key to getting millennials engaged with their group plan is to focus more on savings than retirement. Here are 3 strategies you can use to get you there.
The millennial generation (born between 1981 and 1995) currently makes up a third of the Canadian workforce.[ Note 1 ] As a cohort, they’re tech savvy and they value flexibility.[ Note 2 ] They’re engaged and aspire to accomplish great things in life. But when it comes to their relationship with money, they’re less optimistic than the generation before them.[ Note 3 ]
Money is the #1 source of stress
Financial stress is known to impact millennials’ mental health, hinder their productivity and affect their loyalty to their employer. According to a Desjardins survey on overall wellness, more than 40% of millennials are considering leaving their jobs in the next year.[ Note 4 ] That doesn’t mean they’ll be handing in their 2-week notice tomorrow morning. But it does mean they’re thinking about it. Don’t worry; there’s room to change their minds, starting with helping them take care of their financial health. According to this study, 88% of millennials believe their employer has a role to play in improving their finances. That’s an opportunity!
The solution: A group plan with a focus on financial wellness
For older generations, retirement was a life goal, so that’s what group plans were built around.[ Note 5 ] But millennials don’t have the same priorities. Retirement isn’t their main focus.[ Note 6 ]
Plan sponsors looking to appeal to millennials, earn their loyalty and help reduce their financial stress need to think beyond retirement and incorporate other kinds of saving goals: Saving for a home and building up an emergency fund are concerns inflation and the housing bubble have amplified.
Three strategies for levelling up your plan
Focusing on financial wellness is part of a wider strategy of taking care of your employees and seeing to their overall health. That might be a major shift in focus, but most plans can easily be adapted. Here are 3 quick-to-implement strategies to get started:
- Add new savings products
Offering options like a TFSA or group RRSP is a great way to add more appeal to your plan. And it should go hand in hand with education. At Desjardins, financial literacy is an important part of our mission. We offer a wide range of webinars and other online tools to help your millennial plan members find the answers to all their questions.
- Offer ESG funds
If environmental and social causes are important to your employees, why not offer them investment options that speak to their values and ideals? We offer a wide selection of ESG funds that focus on environmental, social and corporate governance factors. What’s more, investing with your values doesn’t mean sacrificing performance: Most of these funds outperform average returns over 3, 5 and 10 years.[ Note 7 ]
- Offer a personalized mobile experience
There’s a smartphone app for everything nowadays. So why not have one for your group retirement savings plan? It should be just as easy for your employees to check in on their plan as it is to browse streaming services. Luckily, Desjardins does have an app for that, and it’s called Omni. With its intuitive and user-friendly interface, Omni helps plan members along their journey to financial empowerment, sending them targeted messages at key moments to guide them, educate them and motivate them to take control of their finances. And it’s a hit with millennials! Our numbers show that 87% of them take action after receiving messages about selecting investment options.[ Note 8 ]
Whether you decide to follow just 1 or all 3 of these strategies, they’re sure to help your members take full advantage of their plan. And what employer doesn’t want a leg up in making the Best Workplaces for Millennials list? So, what are you waiting for? Millennialize your plan today!