From Radicals to Retirees

Have you ever considered how many of your company's assets walk out the door each day?  Well-trained knowledge workers make a choice to work with your organization on a daily basis. 

But what if one day a large proportion of those employees never returned?  Do you have a sense of

§         the cost of the loss of their intellectual capital

§         the replacement costs of recruiting another workforce with such  dependable and driven people

§         the cost of training in-experienced workers to the level of knowledge that can typically only be achieved over years of experiential learning or

§         the impact on your company's productivity of losing highly manageable workers with well-defined work ethics?

Flower Power: Is the Blush off the Rose?

While companies have been slow to recognize the implications of the world's shrinking talent pool, they have been even slower to realize the potential impacts of the loss of thousands of baby boomers over the next 10 years.  In some cases, companies may have even encouraged the loss of older workers assuming they are expensive and less productive segments of their workforce. 

Even the Boomers themselves have proven to be a contradiction to their own ideologies.  They are well over 30 - the age they once believed others became untrustworthy; they are clearly entrenched in "the establishment" - believing they could get far more done by working within the system rather than protesting from the outside.  They have, by the sheer size of their numbers, reshaped the world at every phase of their development. 

"Will you still need me...When I'm 64?" 

Coining the question from a now prophetic Beatles tune, the answer should be a resounding "YES" for forwarding thinking organizations world-wide.  Once again, the sheer size of the Boomer generation will impact aging in the workplace and retirement just as they have reshaped politics, consumerism and corporate America for the last 40 years.  I would urge you to be involved in preparing for these changes rather than trying to cope with them as they are thrust upon your organizations. 

Averting A Boomer Bust

For those of you who clearly recognize the impact of the loss of boomers to your companies and potentially to the economy, you're probably asking, "what can we do to proactively address the needs of our workers over 50?".  I offer these ideas both from my experiences over the last 35 years as a Human Resource professional but also from my personal experience as a 54-year-old struggling with the same issues and questions as my peers. 

Rethink the myths and stereotypes of your graying workers. 

Reframe the cost of older workers with a greater examination of their contributions to the workplace.  They are relationship builders, dependable, and willing to tackle challenges they often haven't seen before.  They have honed their judgment with years of experience that they apply to make reasoned and profitable decisions. 

The behaviors we often mistake for slowing down or poor productivity is actually one of the few ways these workers have of indirectly making management aware of their desire to re-engage in the workplace but in new and different ways.  While we may be aware of our desire to make changes in our work to achieve a greater level of satisfaction, we may not have well-defined ideas to share with our employers.  Collaborate with your employees to design innovative work schedules, roles and arrangements that will allow these workers to leverage their experience and knowledge. 

Many boomers are often able to make financial and status tradeoffs to remain in the workplace but enrich their personal development in more diverse ways.  Give this segment of the workforce an open forum to talk with you about leading edge ideas to leverage their talent. 

Finally, many graying workers may not want or need to quit working.  We will all want purpose in our lives well into retirement and we will always want to believe we are making solid contributions to our world.  However, we may want to contribute in new and engaging ways, have a desire to continue learning new skills or seeking out intellectual challenges. 

Audit your policies, practices and benefit programs to determine those that will limit your ability to work with boomers effectively long-term.  

Employee benefits and management practices have historically been designed under the impression that the natural evolution of workers we have enjoyed in the past would continue.  Older workers would be longing for leisure somewhere between the ages of 59 and 65 and younger workers would have developed in sufficient numbers to replace our graying workforce with employees who would perform with the same values and drive. 

Clearly, there are not sufficient numbers and won't be for several generations to replace the highly skilled boomers.  As healthcare costs rise and pension plan administrators struggle under the financial burden of providing for retiring employees, boomers as well are vested in working closely with employers to create win-win solutions. 

Consider creating part-time benefit programs, alternative work arrangements, rethinking mandatory and early retirement programs, opening time off programs to uses beyond vacation and illness.  Identify and modify programs and practices that may inadvertently preclude management from shaping arrangements to individual situations. 

Offer Flexibility

All employees are juggling multiple priorities, including family and work.  This is not a new phenomena.  What is new is an idea that most employers have yet to embrace - that there are only 24 hours in each day and that employees are not able to compartmentalize their time and thinking into 8-10 hours/day for work, 8 hours to sleep and managing all the rest of their lives in what remains.  Today, employees just have 24 hours/day to balance all the things in their lives that are important to them and these may not fit neatly into one 8 hour period for work, one for sleep and another for family.  Instead, we may work 4 hours, participate in a school activity for the next 2 hours, return to work for 3 hours, provide care for an elderly parent for an hour...well, you get the idea.  What gets sacrificed?  Often sleep and family.  Not the best equation for a highly engaged and productive employee in the workplace. 

If employers could re-examine how their work can be done and where it can be done, it provides a great start for a dialogue around flexibility.  But a dialogue around results could produce the most productive solutions.  Do you really care where and how I get results as an employee?  Or are you most concerned that I get the results you expect when you expect them?  The more clearly you can define the business outcomes you need and when, employees can rebalance their time to focus on the right things at the right time. 

They can also slot the most complex and innovative work into their days at their most productive times.  An 8 to 5 workday assumes we all are productive at the same times throughout the day.  We know this isn't true in reality.  Management can also assume that we are most productive when our manager is there to watch us.  Perhaps productive for some employees but truly inefficient use of management's time.  Your graying population is probably some of the most self-supervising group of workers you have with the greatest desire to meet your expectations. 

Allow graying employees to come in and out of the workforce

Just as employees now pack all of their lives into a 24 hour period each day, so too do they only have 365 days/year.  While management believes that employees are focused primarily on compensation, employees have consistently put job satisfaction and time in their top five desires.  Salary barely makes the top 10.  As an employee grows and matures their values and needs change.  Allowing an employee to adjust their working relation with you as their values and needs change will give employers an edge in retaining their investment in each person long-term. 

As demands for short-term profitability continue to drive business, long-term benefits such as innovative thinking, learning new skills, implementing leading edge ideas can take the backseat in business in order to keep the status quo.  Time to think, free up buried ideas, read about global disciplines, etc. have historically brought strategy and innovation back into their workplaces.  Give your boomers the gift of time.  This could take the form of organized sabbaticals or just programs and practices that give employees permission to step away from the day-to-day pace to open up new ways of thinking about old work, research and development and new products and services. 

While retaining your own over 50 employee population is essential, you might also take advantage of the boomers who are not working for such an enlightened company.  Your organization may be able to draw effectively on graying workers who are not able to find on-going satisfaction with their current employer.  Outline recruiting strategies that target older workers just as you aggressively pursue entry-level or other experienced employees.  

Provide professional planning services

Most people think about their preparation for retirement and the years before and after from a purely financial perspective.  However, it is the emotional and psychological elements of life after 50 that have the most impact on how satisfied I will be with my life.  Consider offering your employees professional assistance.  Professional assessments on multiple factors beyond finances in addition to life and retirement coaches help guide employees to productive solutions to their individual issues.  Many times a hesitancy to leave the workplace is not because of failing to plan financially but rather concerns about the employee's lack of all the components to make their life personally satisfying without work. 

Other companies have also offered estate planning services and support groups that allow non-retirees to be mentored by retirees to get a sense of the reality of retirement or continuing their careers in a variety of ways. 

Conduct formal workforce and succession planning

You've probably gotten an inkling of the skills, experience and knowledge that your boomer employees now represent.  You are also probably realizing the ramifications if your older workers leave your workplace without sharing their abilities.  So how do you really know the "condition" of your workforce?  One of the easiest ways to find out is to create a formal process for asking your managers.  Have your managers outline on an annual basis an inventory of your talent pool - critical jobs with no replacements, employees likely to retire and when, employees willing to be reassigned or relocate, skills and abilities required of the workforce, etc.  Anticipating issues and preparing solutions is the best way to maintain your organization's resilience in a turbulent and highly competitive business world. 

This complete inventory can also give employees clear direction on skills to learn, behaviors to develop, including gaining competencies that will be required in the future even though the employee had been successful in the past without those skills.  Again, with advance knowledge, an employee can more easily build the skills required to remain competitive in the future.  Conversely, there is far more pressure on an employee's performance when an employer suddenly springs the need to learn new skills on an employee overnight.  None of us would be so skilled as to comply on a moment's notice. 

Formal workforce planning also opens the option to create phased retirement programs.  These can often allow an employee who is remaining in the workplace because of an inability to draw from retirement funds to begin to draw down a portion of their funds while phasing out of their work. 

Rethink how boomers can contribute in the workplace

Boomers may be your best teachers for your subsequent generations of employees.  Formalize mentoring or shadowing programs that connect workers in related positions - one at a beginner or intermediate level with a more experienced boomer.  Think of all the written and unwritten expectations, experiential teachings and cultural norms that boomers can engrain in your workforce.  You will also be securing for your organization all the institutional learning for which most companies have no formal documentation. 

Companies today are on the front lines of generational diversity.  Many of us have three if not four generations of workers in our workforce.  This means a great conflagration of values, attitudes and experiences that are similar in some ways but quite different in others.  Create opportunities for your generations to collaborate - taking the best of Generation X and Y and combining these with the proven advantages of the boomers.  Generation X brings work/life balance, entrepreneurism and technological skills to the business.  When combined with boomers, what an amazing set of "intrapeneurial" talents could be unleashed  - all for the benefit of your business. 

Now you're probably wondering how much will these ideas cost you to create and implement.   The answer?  Far less than allowing your boomers to quietly leave your company with only a gold watch.