A report out from Udemy, 2018 Millennials at Work, points to some interesting statistics that show how the relationship between younger workers and their employer is changing – along with expectations around benefits.
In an automation obsessed market, it’s no wonder Learning & Development now comes close to the top of the list of millennials demands. Udemy’s report found training and professional development opportunities now rank second only to healthcare benefits, at 42% and 48% respectively.
Millennials intrinsically understand they are facing uncertain career trajectories – which means they are increasingly choosing employers that understand this, and can help future proof them for roles inside the organisation or beyond.
And roles are changing rapidly, with automation bringing both pain and opportunity for workers.
In Australia, ManPower predicts over the next 2 years office and administrative functions are set to lose 25% of headcount, finance and accounting 8%. For those in frontline and customer facing roles, headcount is expected to drop by 11%, as mundane, low value tasks become automated. But in these same functions, new roles are expected to be created too. Growth in high value, digital roles is expected to grow simultaneously by 26% for customer service staff.
What relevance does this have for fintech and wealth startups, if any? Well, the connection for pension funds and wealth startups in this space is incredibly clear.
Pension funds will only survive if their members are employed and contributing. Which means these funds have a vested interest in helping their members stay employable.
Pension funds need to ask themselves how they can be relevant in this conversation, and help their clients – who are ultimately both employers and employees – prosper. What we will see of course, is startups in this space ask themselves this question instead, and reinvent the category.
Upskilling employees is expensive, time consuming, and requires big HR and talent departments. Small businesses are at a disadvantage when it comes to the future talent war, when viewed through this traditional prism. But where clever fintech’s in the pension space can bridge the gap, is by finding ways to help reduce the costs and frictions associated with upskilling of employees of SMEs, and thus protect their own commercial outcomes in the process.
That’s exactly the route we’ve taken at Zuper, the pensiontech startup we founded in Australia. By partnering with the biggest next gen education platforms in Australia – General Assembly included – we are bringing our members exclusive access to reduced fees on the courses they need to take to stay relevant, employable, and ride the future wave. From data analysis, web development, UX and UI, our intention is to have the smartest, most employable and wealthiest members in the country. By partnering with small business, this opens up a fresh and relevant conversation, not to mention distribution.
Pension funds need to think about performance beyond that of their investments. The real investment is in the customer. That’s the true performance metric and big untapped opportunity.
Daily Fintech Advisers provides strategic consulting to organizations with business and investment interests in Fintech. Jessica Ellerm is a thought leader specializing in Small Business and the Gig Economy and is the CEO and Co-Founder of Zuper, a new superannuation startup in Australia.