Stay Or Go

Should I Stay or Should I Go…how Can Organisations Retain Their Boomers?

The changing demographics of our workforce today are having a major impact on organisations attracting and retaining mature age workers. With only 27% of the workforce planning to retire at 65 there are many options available for companies to encourage mature workers to continue to contribute positively.

Some suggested initiatives include:

  • Creating life planning programs up to five years before planned retirement involving “significant others” to help people understand what retirement looks like and how long it may be for. Do they have enough money for perhaps 30 years of retirement and what are they going to do with that time?
  • Providing additional leave, possibly with a trade-off being less pay
  • Providing ongoing skills development to ensure workers remain productive through this longer working period
  • Job sharing at all levels
  • Creating an opportunity to downshift to less stressful and time consuming roles and emphasising that not only “managers” are important – all levels of the workforce contribute to the organisation’s success
  • Creating more “permanent part-time” jobs (working 20/30 hour weeks)
  • Ensuring work conditions suit the employee’s physical condition with ergonomic chairs, desks, and limited lifting etc

Where are organisations tending to go wrong when it comes to dealing with this situation?

  • Not listening to the needs of their mature age employees
  • Being inflexible
  • Not conducting staff climate surveys to understand what will attract and retain their mature age (and all) employees
  • Not giving enough attention to the fact that the most important asset of any organisation is its people
  • Failing to understand the total tangible and intangible costs of losing and replacing an employee (6-18 months salary??)

Being unwilling to understand what is happening to the demographics of the workforce

Article contributed by Robert K Critchley
Author & Strategic Workforce Consultant
And provided by the Voice of Baby Boomers

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