Generational preferences and life stage are often key considerations when designing incentive, reward, and recognition programs to motivate employees and salespeople. As is appropriate, today’s workplace rewards are often designed to motivate most workers – Generation X and Baby Boomer employees. Yet these groups represent a rapidly declining segment of the workforce.
According to the US Department of Labor, Baby Boomers, recently the most dominant cohort, will constitute less than one-third of the American workforce within two years. Generation X, which follows the Boomers, is a much smaller cohort and its older members are already approaching retirement age. Together, Millennials and Generation Z (roughly aged 16-44 in 2025) are expected to account for about 60% of the workforce by 2025.
To prepare for this rapidly changing workforce, organisations should examine their reward programs to ensure that they motivate ‘younger’ workers who will soon form the majority. Late career workers should not be ignored but existing rewards programs, perhaps designed for this dominant but diminishing segment of the workforce, will need fine-tuning to suit the fast-growing and soon-to-be-dominant early and mid-career workforce.
In this paper, we explore the range of reward preferences by career stage, including how leaders and incentive designers can address the needs and expectations of everyone on a team to keep them motivated, engaged, and inspired. We investigate ways that reward programs can be re-designed to maximize their appeal to young professionals, and to those in the mid and late stages of their careers, whose motivation remains vital. A secondary consideration in this research is the effect of income level on reward preference, including the combined influences of age and income.
Generational preferences and life stage are often key considerations when designing incentive, reward, and recognition programs to motivate employees and salespeople. As is appropriate, today’s workplace rewards are often designed to motivate most workers – Generation X and Baby Boomer employees. Yet these groups represent a rapidly declining segment of the workforce.
According to the US Department of Labor, Baby Boomers, recently the most dominant cohort, will constitute less than one-third of the American workforce within two years. Generation X, which follows the Boomers, is a much smaller cohort and its older members are already approaching retirement age. Together, Millennials and Generation Z (roughly aged 16-44 in 2025) are expected to account for about 60% of the workforce by 2025.
To prepare for this rapidly changing workforce, organisations should examine their reward programs to ensure that they motivate ‘younger’ workers who will soon form the majority. Late career workers should not be ignored but existing rewards programs, perhaps designed for this dominant but diminishing segment of the workforce, will need fine-tuning to suit the fast-growing and soon-to-be-dominant early and mid-career workforce.
In this paper, we explore the range of reward preferences by career stage, including how leaders and incentive designers can address the needs and expectations of everyone on a team to keep them motivated, engaged, and inspired. We investigate ways that reward programs can be re-designed to maximize their appeal to young professionals, and to those in the mid and late stages of their careers, whose motivation remains vital. A secondary consideration in this research is the effect of income level on reward preference, including the combined influences of age and income.
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