Retirement benefits are particularly problematic as people many decades from retirement tend to favour immediate gratification5. And while it is possible for an individual to imagine themselves in a particular situation, post-retirement, for instance as the proud owner of a beach house in Clifton, it’s hard to imagine what you look like in that beach house. People are uncertain about what they will be like family circumstances and appearance can alter over the course of a lifetime to the extent that people view their future self as a stranger to whom they are unwilling to give away their money5.
What (young) workers want
So, if young workers don’t want benefits, what do they want?
According to Marston6, Millennials require flexibility in terms of working hours and location, variation in their job, continual feedback from supervisors, opportunities to learn and a work environment that presents problems they are required to solve. Further, Manning7 finds that young employees want to feel that they are valuable members of the workforce and that their opinions are respected. For this reason, a substantial part of the total rewards system for young workers includes elements apart from pay and employee benefits.
The issue of on-the-job training has particular relevance given the current economic climate. Any adult, employed or not, has two major assets: human capital and financial wealth8. Human capital is defined as the value of future labour earnings. For a young person, human capital is potentially enormous and far greater than financial wealth. However, young workers may choose to miss out on additional formal learning to enter the workforce quicker. This dynamic is driven partly by the fact that the employment rates of young employees are the most sensitive to the economic situation9. It may be up to the employer to provide training that young workers both want and need.