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Pay Raise Tops Wish List for Boomer Remote Workers

Younger workers most interested in technology upgrades

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Boomers who have been telecommuting during the pandemic are itching for a pay raise, but their younger counterparts are most interested in getting better equipment to do their job at home, according to a poll of 1,000 full-time remote employees of U.S. companies.

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When asked what would improve their work life in 2021, younger people were most likely to say that they would like a work-from-home allowance to invest in faster Wi-Fi and better home office equipment — Gen Z workers (60 percent), millennials (63 percent) and Gen Xers (56 percent). For boomers, the best way to improve their work life is with a pay raise, cited by 54 percent of respondents. The poll was released by Nintex, which provides process management and automation platforms to companies.

The focus on a pay raise by boomers may seem surprising given that the survey found that only 23 percent of them had their income reduced last year, compared with 50 percent of Gen Z employees, 43 percent of millennials and 49 percent of Gen Xers.

Dustin Grosse, chief marketing and strategy officer at Nintex, thinks that it could be that boomers are simply more satisfied with their at-home technology.

"Boomers generally have homes with more space and already invested in effective work-from-home technology to help balance their work-life demands,” Grosse said via email. “Seeing loss of jobs and salary freezes or cuts driven by the pandemic has led them to be more concerned about these impacts on their ability to build adequate retirement savings."

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Boomers are also the most pessimistic about getting raises in 2021, with just 49 percent thinking they'll have an opportunity, compared with 75 to 80 percent of the other generations.

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