Getting Young Workers to Save: Selling Confidence in the Future

As the American workforce transitions into a new era of retirement with the Baby Boomers rapidly entering the golden age, how to entice the workers of a younger and much different working generation into planning and saving for retirement continues to be a focus.    

Our younger generation is bombarded with conflicting information. One popularly expressed motive, “live for today, because who knows what tomorrow will bring?” puts thoughts of retirement a very, very long way into the future. Living in our present-day society with the public focus on doubt and uncertainty, not to mention the war on terror and global pandemics, tells young workers that we really don’t know what tomorrow will bring. We are not as invincible as we once thought. We live in a world that causes them to question their safety, security, and especially the future. In fact, they are constantly provided with excuses not to save.  

If we want more young workers to choose to save, we have to sell the benefits of paying themselves first and getting the free employer money. We have to talk about how plan participation is a way of being in control of their future. We have to sell plan participation by selling the benefit. We need to communicate that we care about them personally and they can trust us when we say they need to devote scarce dollars to their retirement future. We need to convince them that the future will be a good place to be.

So the next time you see someone in their 20s with a latte, cut them some slack. It’s not about the latte, it’s about building understanding, trust and, importantly, confidence in their future.