Where To Begin?

To succeed in communicating with baby boomers and members of Generations X, Y (millennials), and Z, follow these general tips: 

• Recognize their generational characteristics. While pre-retirees are laser-focused on financial security in retirement, recent college grads must overcome a mountain of student debt before they can begin to focus on their retirement horizon.
• Tap into their priorities and preferences. To connect with your target audience, acknowledge the spectrum of personal financial challenges and goals through an individual’s eyes. Connect with them through that lens. Show that you understand a participant’s unique situation. Address top concerns in targeted communications.
• Personalize your messages. Surmount the generic “save more” message whenever you can and try to connect more robustly and effectively with each individual participant. One way is to make personal savings projections based on each participant’s age and account balance. That personal touch will achieve more relevant and resonant messages.
• Honor all aspects of diversity. Variations among participants may include age, language, and gender, as well as learning styles and preferences for digesting information. To reach everyone, use a variety of media that draw on: 
  • Visual messages (infographics) 
  • Data (interactive calculators)
  • In-depth information (articles, blogs)
  • Quick reminders on social media

Sensitivity to all aspects of diversity may entail special efforts to reach minorities, who tend to save less, or steps to target women, who generally invest more conservatively.

Age Ranges and Dates of Birth for Each Age Group

Explore What Makes Each Generation Unique

To connect with your target audience, acknowledge the spectrum of personal financial challenges and goals.

10 Tips To Master Intergenerational Messaging

1. Use a wide variety of media: Examples include print, social media (TikTok, Twitter, YouTube), in-person group meetings, one-on-one sessions, blogs, videos, podcasts, infographics, interactive quizzes and other tools, online calculators, and personalized messages. Use your judgment in deciding how to target each generation based on its proclivities. 
2. Be creative: Refresh or revive your branding. Use games. Personalize your communications when you can. Recognize what messages work with each age group and adapt accordingly.
3. Communicate year-round: Take advantage of seasonal opportunities to send messages and reminders. Plan the re-enrollment period, New Year’s financial resolutions, and Tax Day messages on the benefits of tax-deductible contributions. Galvanize participants to save more when announcing annual pay raises or bonuses.
4. Critically review your plan lineup of investments: Analyze what appeals to each age cohort and what the group requires.
5. Invite greater generational input: Include all generations on your retirement plan committee. Doing so will help you better meet particular participant needs and interests, and better connect with employees. Also encourage input from personnel representing groups of all kinds. If, say, linguistic or cultural minorities do not fully appreciate your message, understand or take advantage of their benefits and reach out to them. 
6. Attempt to even out any participation gaps through auto-enrollment: Such gaps might stem from generational divide or from gender-based or ethnic gaps in their participation rate. This effort can help to pull the under-savers up to the average overall level.
7. Address major sources of financial stress: The lives of various generations can vary tremendously. Unique stressors include student debt, housing affordability, and concerns of the sandwich generation. Address these issues through targeted communications, broad financial-wellness programs, and tailored programs. For example, you might provide employer-matching contributions to help with student-debt repayment or childcare and eldercare resources, as well as information sessions to help ease the transition into retirement.
8. Provide personalized attention: This includes access to one-on-one advice. Look for ways to humanize and personalize all communication and education efforts.
9. Consider a phased retirement program: This can feature multigenerational mentoring in which pre-retirees and retirees share institutional knowledge with younger colleagues before they fully exit the organization.
10. Include a universal message: It can encapsulate the following information: “No matter what your short-term or other competing financial pressures and priorities, always try to save for your future."

The key is to understand your workplace does not comprise a homogenous group of people.

Conclusion

These tips are guidelines to help you cater to the different profiles among your employees. The key is to understand your workplace does not comprise a homogenous group of people. How employees relate to the central challenge of saving for the future will depend on what else is happening in every individual’s life. Always consider how best to communicate with plan participants based on their singular attributes in order to meet them on their own ground and increase the efficacy of your messages.