Recent trials of a four-day workweek, including a notable one in the United Kingdom and New Zealand’s Perpetual Guardian in 2018, have shown promising results.

Results Of The Four-Day Workweek Trial

Perpetual Guardian, a New Zealand company with 240 employees, conducted a two-month trial in March 2018, reducing the standard 40-hour workweek to 32 hours while maintaining employee salaries.

Unlike many companies that reduce pay when cutting hours, Perpetual Guardian’s operational change ensured staff received the same income despite working fewer hours.

The company closely monitored the trial and enlisted researchers to evaluate its impact on productivity and employee well-being. Key findings included:

Improved Work-Life Balance: Unsurprisingly, employees reported a 24% improvement in work-life balance. With extra time to focus on personal activities like exercise, cooking, and spending time with family, employees returned to work feeling refreshed and guilt-free.

Enhanced Job Performance: Supervisors observed increased creativity and enthusiasm among employees. With fewer hours in the office, teams were more motivated and focused.

Reduced Time Off: With more time off during the week, employees were more punctual, took fewer long breaks, and rarely left early. This led to better attendance and fewer requests for time off.

Increased Productivity: The company saw an overall boost in productivity. Employees managed their time more efficiently, shortened meetings, and minimised distractions to maximise their in-office hours.

Can All Companies Benefit?

While the benefits of a four-day workweek, better work-life balance, higher performance, fewer time-off requests, and increased productivity, are evident, this model may not work for every business. Some industries require constant coverage, and reducing staff hours might necessitate additional hiring, which could outweigh the cost savings.

Is A Four-Day Workweek Right For Your Business?

While the four-day workweek was a success for Perpetual Guardian, it may not work for every company. The key is to adapt the model to fit your business on a trial basis. Monitor employee satisfaction and productivity during the experiment.

If you see positive results, consider making it permanent. However, if it leads to scheduling gaps and higher costs, it might not be a viable solution for your organisation.

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Meanwhile, older generations and established corporate practices have been marginalised. Apps have replaced paper in the office, and new market demands have shifted teams’ focus. Age bias is one of several changes that have occurred as Gen Z has entered the workforce more recently.

Age bias targets long-term firm loyalists, not novice staff. This attitude can demotivate older generations, which is problematic. This lack of motivation may reduce team productivity.

How to combat age bias? Let’s look into it in detail.

Face Age Bias

Not everyone realises they have an age prejudice. Your supervisors and team members probably don’t consider age. That may be true, but many people automatically share their experiences with others based on age and other factors when they work with them.

Make managers aware of their biases. Humans make decisions and come up with fresh ideas based on instinct. You can help your managers improve the work environment for older workers by teaching them to recognise this gut reaction or unintentional bias.

Provide New Professional Paths

Has an elderly worker reached a job dead end? This person may want to advance but not know their options. So they have two choices:

This might result in decreased productivity when employees become demotivated and depart for jobs with competitors, leaving a vacant position.

These situations are rarely perfect. When people reach dead ends, create new career pathways to avoid either of them. Create a new path for your staff to be passionate about their professions and produce great work. Sometimes a change is good.

Continue Education

Too many age biases prohibit older workers from getting new jobs. Nearing retirement may indicate a lack of interest in skill development. They don’t get new skill-building opportunities.

Big mistake. Many older workers are excited to improve their skills and knowledge. By giving all employees, regardless of age, these possibilities, you’ll keep them engaged in your firm longer and boost productivity.

Provide Company-Wide Tech Training

Technology, like any business system, works best when everyone uses it. What if one person printed schedules while everyone else worked in the cloud? One individual with the paper copy would be out of date on revisions, causing team confusion.

If older personnel resist new technologies, you may not have paid enough attention to their training. By providing company-wide technology training, you encourage adaptation and eliminate assumptions that everyone is comfortable switching systems. Your older workers and younger millennials will feel more secure in your business management.

Your Company Can Avoid Age Bias

Recognising age bias in the workplace allows you to take steps to protect your team. Keep all generations up-to-date on your company’s technologies and offer fresh career routes and educational opportunities to engage older workers and millennials and maintain a productive staff.

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Closer home, we have a traditional watch company – Titan, launching a smartwatch collection to appeal to a younger demographic. Again, many established fashion and lifestyle labels, such as Nike and Puma have launched sub-brands and mini-collections to enhance their trendiness quotient. These are a few examples of how brands are revamping their offerings and operations to attract millennials and Gen Z.

Such is the economic power of the cohort that all consumer-facing brands, including the ones operating in the financial space, are now motivated to create strategies to attract them.

Why are the Millennials & Gen Z important?

Millennials, typically identified as people born between 1981 and 1996, along with Gen Z, the generation born after them, are perhaps the most marquee group of customers for any business today. In 2019, a Bloomberg survey revealed that Gen Z constituted 32% of the world’s 7.7 billion population. If you add millennials, the group’s proportion would swell close to 50%.

The sheer numbers give power to this dynamic cohort across sectors, including the financial space. A study reveals that millennials were largely driving the demand for new loans globally. It also predicted the situation to remain so for the next many years. Gen Z will soon enter that space and may set the tone for the evolution of the next phase.

A unique consumer group

As a consumer segment, the millennials and Gen Z are different as compared to their earlier generations. Millennials are digital and smartphone-savvy. They desire things fast and conveniently. Also, they are a conscious group that cares a lot about environmental and social issues.

Naturally, they gravitate towards brands with a high ESG (environment, social and governance) quotient. On the whole, millennials desire experiences rather than products. Since they are inspired to live in the moment, they see purchase and expenditure as a means of enjoying experiences as opposed to conquest for ownership and acquisitions.

What does it mean for banking & financial brands?

Banks, globally, are often iconic institutions with a robust reputation built on a rich history of service to the public and community. They have left an indelible imprint on communities by helping in their development and progress.

However, to endear themselves to the millennials, the financial entities have to bank on more than an equation of trust that they have created with their customers. They now have to reinvent themselves by offering convenience, a positive customer experience, simplicity and speedy service delivery. Consequently, a great UI/UX (user interface/user experience) on all digital platforms is important to align both the expectations of this cohort. The heritage of trust and integrity can be complemented with a refreshing look, and bold brand aesthetics to deliver an attractive proposition. Moreover, banks have to evolve as partners in the life of their millennial customers to add value to their lives much beyond banking.

Since millennials have a limited attention span owing to continuous exposure to content and information, it’s imperative that brands should communicate through the right digital mediums. Further, by employing suitable influencers, they can create engaging communication to inspire an emotional connect and receive greater engagement. Digital conversations need to be in sync with the latest trends and be attuned to the current reality. Wherever possible, the campaigns have to stroke conversations around the environment, community development, financial literacy, etc.

The next few years may witness newer innovations to balance the expectations of digital convenience with the need to foster authentic and lasting relationships. Rather than a transactional approach, the banking and financial industry will have to adopt a consultative outlook with a heavy accent on technology to engage millennials and Gen Z.

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According to UOB, 60 percent of Asean population are under the age group of 35 years. Also, more than 70 percent of Asean consumers show significant ecommerce engagement.

The millennial generation will be the bank’s chief clients in the future. It aims to understand the needs of the digital-savvy population. UOB has studied millennials through ethnographic research in order to understand the market in the digital bank space. The bank even partnered with fintech firms Personetics and Meniga to boost customer engagement.

TMRW was launched in Thailand to help Asean’s digital generation enhance their banking experience. Its unique business model is highly customer-centric.

In UOB’s view, TMRW is the first digital bank in the world to enable a call function within its digital chat service. The chatbot has capabilities to recall old conversations with customers.

TMRW’s other prospective markets will include Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia and Vietnam comprising a customer base of between three million and five million users in the next five years, a media report said.

Dr Dennis Khoo, head of group retail digital at UOB, told the media that, “Having a mobile-only digital bank enables us to explore new frontiers when it comes to designing a user interface based on customers’ banking behaviour and needs and to be sensitive to the nuances of each market.”

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Retailers embrace shopping change

It would appear that retailers are leading the way when it comes to winning customers. Once upon a time, consumers would buy into a brand’s message, style and values, but the tables have turned now. Millennials have embraced a DIY approach to shopping, with a wealth of choice and information at their fingertips, especially peer reviews which are increasingly powerful drivers of purchase decisions. Recent research has shown that only seven percent of millennials identify themselves as brand loyalists, while 75% are influenced to shop during a retail sale or promotion. Arguably, brand loyalty is dying a slow death as it heads toward the canvas.

So, what can be done from a brand’s perspective to ensure it can remain relevant in today’s volatile climate? After all, the most common debate is that retailers need brands to survive because without which they won’t have products to promote and sell.

Data is king

One big topic that harmonises the two is data. We already know the power it can give both brands and retailers in terms of insights on customer behaviour and purchase patterns. The rise of online shopping combined with the social media boom has opened up a host of new channels and platforms for brands and retailers to promote their message, which in return, leaves them with a mountain of actionable customer data.

Making sense of this data and acting upon it has proved to be a blessing and a curse for marketers. Done right, data can help to retain new customers, target and convert new ones, and ultimately boost sales. Otherwise, it might lead to customer dissatisfaction, resulting in a displeased word of mouth. Still worse, if data is not handled correctly following the introduction of the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) earlier this year, there will be a huge fine imposed on brands or retailers. There is a greater responsibility on data use,and it will have a bearing on people-based marketing. Data partners will need to know where the data is coming from and how it was consented.

A second-party strategy

So if retailers and brands have the same end goal—winning and retaining customers, then why can’t they operate together to help achieve this? Surely the combination of the two sets of data on a single customer is better than one? So how can brands and retailers set about doing this? The answer lies in what is known as second-party data.

Second-party data is essentially data that customers don’t provide directly, but is obtained via a relationship with another entity. For example: Take any supermarket and Coca-Cola. The brand (Coca-Cola) is responsible for developing the product, but arguably knows very little about the end-user given that the majority of sales come through the retailer (the supermarket). It is therefore within the interests of the brand to work with the retailer to obtain customer data that enables them to tailor their product marketing for current audience. For example, targeting paid media to lapsed buyers and measuring the in-store sales impact of that paid media. In addition to a potential new revenue stream, the benefit for the retailer is a more engaged brand that invests more in paid media and brand-funded promotions.

Co-marketing opportunities

In addition to brand-retailer, second-party use cases, where brands also explore brand-retailer-brand opportunities. Imagine a world were brands can instantly understand how users buying their products in a given retailer are transacting with other brands associated with the same retailer. This opens up the opportunity for non-competitive brands to identify partners to drive co-marketing opportunities without costly market research. For example: a soft drink brand may identify which alcoholic beverage brand they can approach to develop a coupon discount partnership. Brands working together in this way could even create combined audiences for paid media targeting and measurement.

A long-lasting relationship

As shopping patterns and behaviours continue to evolve, the future will always remain somewhat uncertain for both brands and retailers. The next big phenomenon is always just around the corner and ready to shake up the industry once again. With this in mind, instead of competing against each other, like they have historically, brands and retailers need to recognise that they can actually overcome many hurdles in the landscape, especially if they forget their differences and work together.

Second-party data is a powerful tool if handled and actioned correctly. It largely depends on how brands and retailers can work in harmony to build relationships with their customers and ultimately remain relevant and profitable.

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With a great depth of world-renowned universities, the UK is undeniably a haven for employers’ seeking highly-skilled and economically active young people. Naturally, this should lend to employers an unbelievable opportunity to ‘cherry pick’ those individuals most suited to their company culture and future job requirements—from a diverse and well sourced labour pool. In other words, the UK market is primed for businesses recruiting skilled graduates. Therefore, the issue is not significant to the relationship millennials have with the business world. It is the relationship businesses have with the millennials within.

Since my acquisition of Absolute Corporate Events (ACE) in 2013, I have ensured to develop a business strategy based upon people, rather than just numbers which makes ACE home to some of the UK’s leading event industry professionals with a visible growth of 400%.

Below, I note three vital themes to consider when questioning the relationship your business will have with its staff, in particular while recruiting and retaining young employees.

Trust your investment  

Trust is not something to be taken lightly, by all means. It is important to trust your new hires to perform to the standards set by your business. This might require a certain level of training before a graduate can be prepared to face the client or attend new business pitches. However, it is absolutely important to provide opportunities that will allow them to prove themselves and have some legitimate responsibility in their work without which they might begin to feel undervalued. And once they feel undervalued, the prospect of working somewhere else is not only more appealing but also feasible. Too often we see businesses becoming complacent about their workforce—and in turn, this results in businesses being ‘lazy, drifters and entitled’. If you don’t take your employees for granted, they’re not so likely to take their job for granted.

Offer career progression

Young people aren’t taking on anywhere upward of £35,000 debt just to be part of a stigma and have a three-plus year party. In fact, for the most part, they are highly ambitious and charismatic individuals in search of opportunities that will take them to the next level.

Creating a work culture that encompasses training and opportunity, in my experience, has encouraged young hires to stay within the industry for a long time. Millennials are not ignorant to the fact that they need training. Universities certainly help them to develop social skills, but the theoretical matter learned is rarely applicable to the demands of their ‘adult job’.

Therefore, having a clearly defined and invigorated training and promotion scheme can be a valuable asset to employers with young people reporting into them. It is important to exercise training to develop employee potential, offer promotions to incentivise this training and sustain the access to further promotions as a form of intrinsic motivation. Promotions don’t necessarily have to be based on an increased salary, and more often than not it is seen as the only means of retaining employees. The reality, however, is that businesses should also be able to sell their employees better work conditions.

Growing responsibilities and job title changes are highly effective ways of rewarding employees. It can also serve as a valuable indication to clients that trusting your employees and wanting to retain them because of the confidence they show is a useful tool in encouraging clients to reciprocate their behaviour.

Reward and recognition is another valued structure than promotion or advancement as carefully positioned meaningful rewards show employees that you truly care about them and their contribution. This in turn will encourage them to become more productive.

Be transparent

It is worth taking note that when businesses make assumptions of what’s appealing to graduates, they deceive both themselves and their potential hires. Appealing aesthetics such as bright coloured walls, ping-pong tables and sleeping pods are not always effective forms of enticement for ‘top’ employees at least. And by this I refer to those who are looking to upskill their performance at work.

Actively seeking counsel of new hires when making an informed decision can be a good start for employers. Incorporate and empower your team—at no extra cost. The truth is, you have no obligation to act upon the recruit’s counsel; it will simply enable you to create a positive perception of the business and encourage growth and career development.

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Using chat applications is one method that is increasingly used by millennials to discuss their investments with advisors.

Oliver Wintle, Associate Wealth Management Analyst at GlobalData, said: “One issue with ‘chat applications’ however, is that the wealth management firm does not own the data—the third-party messaging service does. In addition, if the advisor leaves the company so does theirconversation history with the client.”

However, email remains one of the key forms of communication between wealth managers and investors. In fact, the 2018 Mass Affluent Investors Survey suggests its use has been increasing: between 2017 and 2018, the proportion of investors communicating with their advisor via email form increased by 10 percentage points.

Wintle continues: “Despite this, email is not ideally suited to client-advisor communication. For instance,  if at any point the client clicks ‘move to spam’ on an email, all future communications will follow the same path and end up in the recipient’s spam folder—stripping a company of engagement with the client. Consequently, wealth managers should focus on other communication channels.”

There is willingness for investors to communicate with their wealth managers via chat applications. It is important that wealth managers embrace this change. To tackle compliance and data ownership challenges, they should seek to include chat features in their core online and mobile platforms. Partnering with third-party IT vendors such as ‘Moxtra’ may be one solution.

Wintle adds, “Wealth managers must make sure their chosen communication channels are not easily ignored by clients. Increased engagement will undoubtedly result in better customer retention—but also a higher level of client involvement with their portfolio.”

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There is some justification. The justification would be that millennials are younger. People save money when they cross the retiring phase and needing money becomes concrete. Millennials are 30-40 years away from crossing the line. The previous generation is 10 years away from retirement. So, it is that much easier to think of retirement as the closer you are to retiring…and that would be the justification.

What would be an ideal annual income for millennials?

I don’t think so there is an ideal figure. I’m a millennial and what my ideal income is: I would say a million dollars, or maybe more. I have seen surveys that talk about more than 100,000 dollars for men and 60,000 dollars a year for women. But I wouldn’t put much thought into those. I don’t know if there is an ideal income.

Recent “Millennials and Work” survey shows an average earning of at least $118,000 per annum. Despite these figures, what are the financial challenges they face unique to the American economy?

The challenges are many. First: student loan; Second: lack of jobs in their respective professions; Third: limited financial awareness in terms of not understanding their credit scores, retirement accounts, and the like. Overall, their rudimentary knowledge of basic financial profiles will weigh them down financially.

How would you define millennials’ spending pattern and credit scores?

Millennials are much less likely to have good credit. At every level, millennials are performers. The shocking thing to me is not that they have less credit, it is that they don’t know their credit scores. And this comes back to the idea of millennials not having enough understanding of their basic financial issues. So, credit scores is a big challenge.

On an average, what is the financial satisfaction rate for millennials? Why?

What I identify is that millennials are unsatisfied with their current financial situation, and also optimistic about the future. I would expect somebody unsatisfied currently to be pessimistic about their future, but it seems millennials as a whole almost are optimistic about their chances of improving the situation. It is almost a half glass full situation where it really fits the stereotypes of people who believe the future is going to be better.

Why do you think millennials are optimistic despite their financial challenges?

To them, the further they go into their career, the higher their earnings will be…and in the process they will be able to save much more. And I am hopeful that their optimism is warranted.

What does Money Under 30 survey have to say about millennials viewpoint on finances?

In our previous survey, we asked millennials how satisfied they are with their finances. It seems that 56% of millennials are either very unsatisfied or somewhat unsatisfied with their current financial situation. In comparison with other Americans, 44.6% said they are only very unsatisfied or somewhat unsatisfied.

Studies show millennials are three-times more likely to ask help from friends and family. What is the chief reason behind this?

That is from our study as well. We asked millennials: in an unexpected expense of 500 dollars, which is not so much money in the grand scheme of things, how would they cover the cost? The findings showed that millennials were three-times more likely than others to ask help from friends and family. It does paint a picture of millennials financially lagging behind. They are spending a lot during the holiday season; and they are willing to go into debt.

Would you factor in laziness, in part, for their financial dissatisfaction?

I wouldn’t say they have a feeling like they can coast; they are lazy or anything like that.  But I’m a millennial, for example, and I don’t feel that way about myself or my peers. I don’t feel that my generation is any lazier than any other generation. I mentioned the three issues that are affecting millennials: student loan debt; general lack of financial awareness; and inability to find jobs in their respective industries.

So millennials can’t directly control everything, but they can educate themselves by diversifying their knowledge. For example: a platform such as Money Under 30.

However, student loans are affecting millennials very uniquely in a way it is not affecting any other generation. The cost of tuition has doubled since the late 80s and they are a real burden for millennials. We have loan employment in the United States and yet millennials are not able to find jobs in their current fields. They working in jobs they are not experts in for the sake of other commitments. There are legitimate burdens for millennials and it has nothing to do with laziness or anything like that.

How can millennials manage their finances better, especially under challenging circumstances such as educational loan; tuition fee; or part-time job?

I would say start saving now. Often what happens with millennials is they think that “I don’t need to save now. I’m not making a lot of money now and I can afford to wait…and in 10 years when I make a lot of money, I can afford to save.”

But they are really missing out on the benefits of saving early. Saving early is huge. When you first get into the mentality of saving…it really forces you to consider your finances: if you’re really paying attention to or you’re going to miss out on other opportunities.. So there are very real reasons to save early, and there are compounded benefits for people who are willing to take that risk.

They can get into the investing side of the game early on and have a portfolio—such as 85% in stocks. We know the stock prices rise over time. If millennials don’t invest early they are going to miss out, and even if it is 100 dollars a month or less than that…you can open an account and start investing. The resources are available. They just need to start. Save early and educate them well.

There is no reason why they shouldn’t know their credit scores or why they should pause on their retirement accounts.

In the recent survey carried out: we asked millennials about their contribution toward retirement accounts. Nearly 10% of millennials said they don’t know. Many of them said they are not contributing but the fact that millennials don’t even know if they are contributing or not speaks of the massive lack of knowledge they have toward their own finances. So, the idea is to save early and become aware.

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They are less satisfied than other Americans with their current financial situation. The heavy burden of student loans and intense competition in the job market makes it hard for millennials to be content with the amount in their bank accounts.

A leading cause of this dissatisfaction is having high expectations of life, and life’s failure to meet this expectations is producing some unhappy millennials.

Millennials are much more optimistic about their future financial situation than the general population.

This optimism is the product of circumstance—Millennials are young and the world is their oyster. The rest of the population—having roamed the planet for a bit longer—might simply have a more realistic understanding of the economy and their future earnings potential. But there is another explanation that holds weight. For their entire adult lives, Millennials have known a healthy and improving economy so are more likely to see that upward trajectory as fixed rather than temporary. This contrasts with other Americans, who were already in adulthood and therefore acutely felt the effects of the pendulum known as the global economy. They view the economy’s recent upward trend as one part of the natural ebbs and flows of the economy in general.

They have goals and hope to reach them, but Millennials are going to have to figure out how to get from where they are today to where they want to be in their financial future.

The most stunning set of responses proving that Millennials are lagging financially was to the question of how people would pay for an unexpected expense of $500. At 19.5%, Millennials are nearly three  imes more likely than other Americans to ask help from friends or family. The conclusion that Millennials are not sufficiently healthy financially was supported again in regards to their lack of understanding of retirement, credit scores, and credit cards.

More than half (51.6%) of Millennials responded that they are not contributing to their retirement accounts. This, despite numerous reporting and studies that show the importance of early investing in retirement accounts, indicates that millennials need some financial course correcting.

Lack of knowledge of credit scores
A person’s credit score guides them in life, it determines the rates of loans and mortgages, and it’s even being used in job interviews and by landlords to test if people will make good tenants. These findings are solid evidence that Millennials need to become cognizant of the financial concepts that impact them most.

Millennials are more than twice as likely (35%) as the general population to completely avoid using credit cards

Along with the data that shows that Millennials don’t know their credit score, this indicates that Millennials can better understand the value of responsible credit card use in raising their credit score, which will help them throughout the entirety of their financial futures.

The survey, conducted in 2018, was jointly carried out with Survey Monkey based on a representative sample of more than 600 people in the United States that are managing their finances

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The findings reveal that millennials are hopeful flying will become easier and cleaner in years to come. They also expect business aviation to become much more accessible for the next eneration of users and for individuals seeking lucrative career opportunities.

Three key findings from the survey are:

• Millennial views on transport are closely linked to concerns about the environment: 40% said that climate change is the megatrend that will have the biggest impact on the development of sustainable personal air transport. Artificial intelligence and digitisation come next. They also expect most research on innovation in aviation to focus on making air transport more sustainable.
• Millennials say the best thing about business aviation is the freedom and flexibility that it offers: 62% believe that the main benefit of business aviation its ability to take people where they need, when they need.
• Millennials believe that while technology will find solutions to mobility questions, there will still be concerns about cost, trust and safety. For example, 60% of Millennials are ready to use ride-sharing air services, but only 46% are ready to use automated ride-sharing air services.

They see future mobility as an efficient, environment-friendly whole. They recognise the potential for business aviation to drive technological change in the wider aviation sector. And they can see its increasing accessibility and democratisation.

EBAA Chairman Jürgen Wiese said the survey gave the business aviation sector a valuable platform to connect to young people in an ever-changing environment. “Integrating the Next Generation into our industry is paramount for the sector to master the transition into the next age of aviation. This report shows how this can be done and is just a starting point for many more encounters to follow. We are committed to listening and engaging with Millennials to expand our horizons together,” he said.

ThinkYoung’s Founder and Chief Thinker Andrea Gerosa said the survey would be a valuable resource for the business aviation sector as it moved to expand its reach. “Millennials are rarely asked what they think, but they will determine our future. EBAA has looked two steps ahead: they have asked the Next Generation for their opinions on the future of transport, and they have pledged to take on board the messages from Millennials.”

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