When Brett Barrowman was planning his upcoming program for 420 attendees in Monaco, a young qualifier gave him a suggestion for a post-conference offering: How about a Eurail Pass?

“Our older qualifiers would never think of taking off with a backpack,” says Barrowman, vice president, director, conference and travel management, at American Fidelity Group in Oklahoma City. “They want to know, ‘Who's picking us up at the airport?’”

There's your new challenge: Can you deliver an incentive program with enough flash and flexibility to keep Generations X and Y (who represent your future) paying attention? And can that same program give Baby Boomers (who probably still mean the most to your bottom line) the respect and recognition they require?

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“This topic is touching a nerve right now,” says Cheryl Cran, a presenter and writer based in Vancouver, British Columbia, who spoke at the FICP Canadian chapter meeting in August. “Gen Y is pushing the envelope in terms of what they want from employers. They don't look at their jobs as a career. Their loyalty is not to the company, it's to their family and friends.” Meanwhile, she adds, “a lot of Baby Boomers have chips on their shoulders because the younger workers aren't having to go through what they went through. They see Gen X and Gen Y colleagues getting promotions after two years where it took them 10 years.”

Indeed, some Gen X and Y producers are climbing the ladder fast at Allstate, meeting educational and financial criteria to buy exclusive franchises and turning up at Mark Mosley's incentive conferences. “The harder you work, the more you can make, and that's very appealing to Gen X and Y,” says Mosley, division manager, Irving, Texas. “Gen X is the microwave and drive-through generation. They want fast results.”

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LIMRA International puts the average age of a life insurance producer at 56. The Independent Insurance Agents and Brokers Association's average member is 54. While younger producers are entering the ranks, that average will keep rising for a few more years, since insurance producers tend to work past typical retirement age. That sets up the situation many meeting planners find themselves in: They've got conference attendees whose ages span four decades.

“I do believe our qualifiers are getting younger, and it seems the last few years we have been challenged with a broader range of ages,” says Lynn Averill, second vice president, travel and conferences, National Life of Vermont. “We have some top producers who are hitting 70, and some of these younger producers are their children just coming into the business.”

Getting those young ones hooked is a particular concern to insurance and financial services companies, where retention is a priority. “We've been looking at this for several years,” says Barrowman. “We know that for the Millennials, entitlement is part of the deal. They are not loyal to a certain company. They are likely to change careers seven times. So how do we dangle a carrot to keep them year after year? It takes a lot of money in recruiting, hiring, training, and benefits for a new producer, and maybe two or three years to recoup that. How do we keep them so we get the return on our investment?”

His answer for incentive conferences involves careful site selection and lots of options, because, as he also notes, “we still have older folks with older tastes.” In fact, Barrowman's top-level incentive program is split right down the middle, with half the qualifiers in their mid-40s to late 50s and the other half in their mid-20s to mid-30s.

A recent successful site choice was Bermuda. “Bermuda is great because you can offer shopping and bus tours as well as kayaking and Wave Runners,” he says. One night during the program, the younger crowd had dinner at a pub while the older crowd went to a restaurant by the ocean where the atmosphere was quiet and more upscale.

Allstate's Mosley also finds that his Gen X and Gen Y attendees prefer a casual atmosphere, “so if I'm planning a dinner event, I might go with a Tommy Bahama theme rather than black-tie,” he says.

Grant Snider, president of JPdL Destination Management in Toronto, has noted a shift in requests for evening events. “My impression is that planners today want to touch their participants with something emotional rather than a story line theme,” he says. “They want to create an experience, an ambience, a mood. They want people to say, ‘What an elegant evening,’ or ‘What a cool look.’”

And when you get these younger qualifiers into their general session seats, Cran advises, watch out for boredom and BS. The younger attendees in the audience are looking for “passion and authenticity” from senior executives on stage, she says, not corporate catchphrases. Which does not mean you should skip the glitz. “They need flash and dazzle,” she adds. “They're so used to audio and visual stimulation.”

But how to choose an inspiring presenter? Lisa Carnemolla, vice president, Goodman Speakers Bureau, believes it is possible to find those who can reach multiple generations. She recalls a diverse audience listening to Susan and Phil Ershler, the first married couple to climb the Seven Summits (the highest peak on each of the seven continents). Susan trained while holding down a job as national sales manager running a multimillion-dollar division of a company. Asked how she fit the training into her schedule, she explained that at lunchtime she would strap on a backpack filled with kitty litter and climb flights of stairs in her office building. “The Boomers' reaction was, ‘Wow, that's crazy,’” Carnemolla recalls. “And the Gen Xers' reaction was, ‘Wow, that's cool!’”