The Bahamas Financial Services Board (BFSB) is set to launch its latest “People Power” initiative – The Bahamas Millennials Society – a networking and mentoring club of financial services industry millennial workers.
Millennials are people born between the early 1980’s to the early 2000’s.
From inception BFSB has had a targeted focus on human capital development, recognising this as a cornerstone of sector development.
This has translated into a number of different programmes over the years within the secondary schools and with the College of the Bahamas – inclusive of industry orientation programmes for students and teachers, careers fairs, student awards programmes, to name a few.
Added to this, BFSB has sponsored industry awards programmes since 2001, with the primary objective of profiling role models within the sector.
A series of surveys in recent years attest that millennials represent a powerful generation of workers, who actively influence the way they work.
Officials said employers around the world are sitting up and taking notice as the millennial generation will form the majority of the workforce by 2020.
“Addressing the need for home-grown future industry leaders and capitalising on the pool of talent already present within the financial services sector, BFSB has determined to look at how we can develop and retain the millennial workers within the sector,” BFSB CEO Aliyah Allen said.
“To this end, BFSB has formed a Millennials Planning Committee, with the objective of formally launching the society at a forum within the first half of the year. In a recent survey, over half of millennium respondents said training and development are the most valuable benefit they see in the next five years of their professional development. And, 98 per cent of all respondents said working with coaches and mentors is an important development opportunity. This ties in perfectly with our plans.”
A key component of the membership benefits will be regular meetings to promote networking amongst the millennials and mentor presentations on topics of interest to this generation of workers.
“It is an indisputable fact that one has to capture both the hearts and minds of the millennial worker,” Ms. Allen said.
“It cannot be business as usual. We look to our member firms to support this initiative, fully recognising that this is the generation that will drive this sector forward in the coming years.”
