Diversions May 21, 2015

Office Housework? Someone Has to Do It

Is office housework—pitching in on tasks, sweeping spills, cleaning the coffee pot—a widespread burden? And do women workers do it because they feel they have to?
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The topic evoked strong feelings, from resentment to bemusement, in a survey from the Watermark Lead On Conference for Women.

More than half the all-female respondents help colleagues with work—edit a report, babysit a project, answer someone else’s phone  or handle the technology during someone’s PowerPoint presentation—the survey found. The same percent of women also help with printers, fixing paper jams, replacing cartridges or refilling paper.

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They plan office parties and take notes at meetings (56%); train new hires (52%); mentor younger coworkers (44%) and even help keep the kitchen clean (47%). Other notable office housework tasks include helping with everything meeting-related (scheduling, reserving the room, setting the agenda, ordering food and cleaning afterward), serving on committees and basically acting as “a hotel concierge/help desk” fielding requests for restaurant recommendations, office equipment and building repairs and technology problem-solving.

A number of women reported doing more actual housework than the survey specified, including sweeping, vacuuming, dusting, defrosting the freezer, descaling the coffeepot, running the dishwasher, throwing out trash – and even cleaning toilets.

Why do they do it? Answers included:

  • “I’m the kind of person who helps when she can” (70%)
  • “I want to be a team player” (66%)
  • “It’s a way to develop friendships and good relationships (40%)
  • “Karma – what goes around comes around” (33%)
  • “I’m the boss and want to set a good example (25%)
  • “I have a hard time saying ‘no’ (22%)
  • “My boss expects it (16%)

In other words, the survey said, “most women do not do office housework because they feel obligated to.” Respondents added that these tasks typically take little time in their workday. More than 75% said that these tasks take up less than 10% of their day, with almost 44% saying they take up less than 5% of their day.

Almost three-quarters (72%) said they don’t regularly have to stay late or work on weekends because of the extra work. For the 28% who do put in longer hours, office housework can be an issue.

About half of respondents (52%) said a few men in their office pitch in; more than a third (38%) reported that none do and 10% said most men do.  More than three-quarters of respondents agreed that “any expectations around office housework are in men’s favor.”

Data & Research May 20, 2015

Amid Challenges, Millennials Strive to Save

Millennials are taking shape as a generation that cares about saving for retirement but is in desperate need of advice and education, a study finds.
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As Millennial workers are just getting started on a lifetime of saving, the industry has hopes that this generation—the first to be able to leverage a lifetime of 401(k) contributions—will be able to prepare adequately for retirement.

Auto-features are a plan sponsor’s best resource for helping Millennials get the most out of the plan, says Judith Ward, a senior financial planner and vice president of T. Rowe Price investment services. “Millennials are using them, they need them, and they want more,” she told PLANADVISER during a roundtable discussion on the firm’s latest research.

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Ward said 80% of Millennials believe the default deferral rate should be raised under auto-enrollment, and many wish they had been enrolled at higher percentages. The findings come from the firm’s new report that examines retirement savings behaviors in different age groups, “Millennials, Gen X, and Baby Boomer Workers and Retirees: Retirement Saving and Spending Study.” 

Millennials are novice investors, pointed out Jerome Clark, a chartered financial analyst (CFA) and head of the T. Rowe Price target retirement funds, among other roles. “They want financial guidance, because they are aware that they’re lacking in financial knowledge,” he said. “They’re not getting financial education in school, in college or at home.” When they get to the workplace as new employees and new plan participants, they sometimes find themselves at sea.

Millennials have a gap in knowledge about finance in general. From that perspective, “it probably doesn’t matter what investments they are defaulted into,” Ward says. “Plan sponsors need to educate them about target-date funds and what’s important about participating in the plan.”

Next: Millennials are open to advice—on their terms.

Advice for Digital Natives

This generation seems open to the idea of paying for professional financial advice. More than a third of Millennials (38%) said they have paid for financial advice in the last five years. “Since this generation was raised by Baby Boomers, they get a lot of their values from them,” Clark noted.

Other things to keep in mind about this generation, Ward observed, is their tech savvy. “They’re called digital natives for a reason,” she said, but they still like talking to someone one-on-one. This means advisers will need to think about the way they do business with Millennials. Ward mentioned a financial planner, a Millennial herself, who reaches out to Millennial investors online, using Skype and FaceTime, which Ward called a good way to use technology in client services.

Their deep engagement with social media means that advisers might want to create more personalized experiences to interact. Ward says advisers could consider creating a profile that Millennials can view online, and their love of gaming, peer review and peer recommendations all represent opportunities for creative approaches in delivering information or connecting. “They mistrust traditional advertising,” Ward points out. “They want authenticity.”

Some additional findings about Millennial saving and spending habits from the study are:

  • 23% contribute 5% to 6% of their personal income to their 401(k) plans;
  • 24% know that the recommended contribution is 10% to 14%;
  • 40% are contributing a higher percentage of their income than they were a year previous;
  • 61% say getting a raise is the top reason they’d increase their contribution; and
  • 45% of those contributing less than the maximum say they can’t afford to contribute any more.

T. Rowe Price surveyed 3,026 working adults, age 18 and older, currently contributing to a 401(k) plan or eligible to contribute and having a balance of at least $1,000 between March 4 and March 25. The report also includes responses from 255 Millennials (ages 18 to 33) working and eligible for a 401(k) plan at their current employer but not contributing and without a 401(k) balance.

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