Nationwide Study of Millennial Small Business Owners

Over the past few years, Millennials have been given a bad rap.  Maybe it was partially deserved or maybe the younger generation is always maligned by the older folks who yearn for their younger years.

A recent study challenged the popular notions of the group that grew up without floppy disks or record players and are more likely to text than to email.  Millennials have been known to be entitled, somewhat lazy and not really respectful of their elders.  However, the insurance giant, Nationwide, conducted a survey to ascertain how prepared Millennial small business owners are in terms of disaster and retirement planning and found some of the generalizations about the group misleading.

The national survey was conducted online by Harris Poll among 502 U.S. small-business owners with fewer than 300 employees.

In terms of Gen Xers and even baby boomers, the results were telling.  Millennial small business owners are in fact very prepared (and as such, it might be surmised quite hard working).  The report stated, that Millennials are more likely  “…than Gen X or Baby Boomers to have plans for natural disasters, retirement benefits, cyberattacks and even business succession.” We are finding in our own business that millenials are increasingly interested in proactively seeking working capital to support their business.

Mark Berven, president of Nationwide Property & Casualty Nationwide surmises that the negative notions of Millennials have not always taken into mind certain realities: “…it’s a fact that they are now the largest, most educated and most diverse generation in the United States, according to the Council of Economic Advisers…and many of them joined the workforce in an era of great economic uncertainty.”

• In addition, given Millennials grew up with the Internet, they are all too aware of the dangers. As such the survey reported 42-percent of Millennials small business owners have a cyberattack response plan in place  versus 17-percent of Gen Xers and 12-percent of Baby Boomers.

The results of the survey found the following:

• Millennials are most likely to have a disaster recovery plan in place (51 percent), versus Gen X (30 percent) or Baby Boomers (29 percent)

• Millennials are most likely to offer retirement benefits (59 percent); they are also most likely to offer their employees any of the following benefits (84 percent), versus Gen X (60 percent) or Baby Boomers (46 percent): medical insurance, paid time off, retirement benefits workers’ compensation, and more.

• Millennials are most likely to currently have a business succession plan in place versus their older counterparts.

“If you think about the risks many Millennials have experienced and grown up with — everything from cyberattacks to an economic meltdown — it makes sense that they would be some of the most concerned individuals out there. They want to protect what matters most to them — their business,” says Berven.