Employee Retention Strategies is uniquely designed to provide small- to medium-sized organizations (and business units of large organizations) with affordable, effective, fast and lasting solutions to improve employee retention,
satisfaction and commitment.

Graceful Aging of the US Workforce?
Companies that Prepare Now
Will Find Far Smoother Sailing

     Imagine coming to your workplace and finding one out of five employees did not show up. They’re not coming back, either. If you’re in the public sector, by the way, 40% of your workforce has left.
     Imagine, too, an available pool of younger talent, yet their skills, education and language abilities have not been developed, so they struggle to communicate with customers and co-workers.
     In the coming decade, organizations that did not begin now to address coming wave of Baby Boomer retirees will be unable to sustain their missions and marketplace positions due to too many empty desks, workstations, customer-service specialists and other essential posts.

     Thank goodness for the past recession and bear stock market. Well, sort of. The rapid decline in workers’ retirement savings may keep a greater number of older workers in the workforce longer, either full- or part-time.
     However, research still shows that many Baby Boomers will be beginning to retire in the next few years – leaving unprepared companies, industries and professions scrambling to make the best of a tidal wave never before experienced in history.
     Here are the statistics: By the year 2030 the US population over age 65 will be 20%, up from the current 12%. Now there are 4.7 working-age people for every retired person. In 30 years, the ratio changes to 2.7 to 1. The generation following the Baby Boom is a little over half its size: 80 million Boomers are followed by only 46 million Gen-Xers (born from 1965 to 1980)
     The saving grace may be immigration, which brings younger people to the United States. However, still unknown are now new immigration laws may impact workforce shortages.

How Systems Change
     In a word, most change occurs slowly. Environmentalists have been cautioning us for decades about global warming, yet only recently have governments and individuals begun to take action. Climatic shifts are slow; people generally fail to react to subtle change, only to dramatic forces.
     Other examples: People who smoke can develop emphysema long after ceasing to use cigarettes. Changes in the lungs occur gradually, yet the disease is irreversible once it actually sets in. Urban sprawl doesn’t happen overnight, yet hour-long traffic jams result. Systems theorists will tell you that cause and effect are rarely close in time.
     We may see delays in retirement because people are healthier and want to continue to work to stay vital and because they want to recover financial losses from the past bear market. But the shift will come, and the current healthy economy may actually spur greater numbers of people to then retire.

Smart Strategies
     The smartest overall strategy? Now. Each of the following are longer-term approaches that need to begin, well, yesterday.

• Knowledge transfer. Don’t wait to establish mentoring programs between older and younger workers, among professional and technical staff as well as higher-skilled positions such as security and facilities management. Formalize the process to ensure that both technical knowledge and learned techniques (such as how to get work done faster, how to most effectively work with key customers and how to establish patient-family rapport) are passed on.
  
  Getting an early start on instituting a knowledge-transfer process makes mentoring of younger workers an essential part of the culture long before the need becomes severe.
   

• Include retention efforts tailored to senior, experienced workers. Baby boomers are the healthiest generation to date and also, studies show, still want to make their mark on the world. Organizations that include opportunities to be creative, express initiative and make a difference will succeed in retaining workers longer.
  
  More flexible working relationships already are in place in many organizations. Job sharing has kept more professional women in the workforce during child-rearing years, and flextime has allowed greater ability to customize work hours to enhance personal time and family activities. Shortages of health-care workers have led to more companies providing full benefits to part-time workers.
  
  Now, it’s time to listen to what older workers would like to make it possible and attractive for them to continue working. Too, companies may have to prepare for higher benefit costs as actuarial rates reflect an older workforce.
   

• Get serious about diversity. Efforts to increase how welcome diverse people feel in organizations have mostly had step-child status: Many companies undertake diversity because they’re federal contractors and are subject to audits or as a result of lawsuits.
  
  Our nation’s population is becoming increasingly diverse, yet barriers to full, meaningful employment still exist. The majority of housekeeping and a large proportion of nursing aide employees in hospitals are minorities; at the same time, nursing is struggling now with how to attract more diverse people into the profession.
  
  Many past “diversity programs” have been poorly constructed and implemented. However, successful processes are emerging. Organizations that aim to fully bring diverse people into their ranks will more likely thrive when the Baby Boomers retire in larger numbers.
   

• Incorporate generational differences. Baby Boomers never were comfortable with feedback. Millenials thrive on knowing how they’re doing. Some older traditional workers tended to be more resistant to change. Gen Y-ers want change for breakfast.
  
  Using generational research to tailor hiring and employment practices will help retention efforts as the labor market shrinks. How generation-friendly are your current work rules, management styles and company benefits? How are older workers and younger workers encouraged to work successfully together?
   

• Environmental scanning is not an option. As the huge cohort of Baby Boomers downsizes to smaller housing and uses more health-care resources, how will your organization be affected? As environmental concerns heighten, how will your organization’s activities be affected? As global insecurity mounts, what are the unanticipated costs to your company?
  
  More than ever, keeping an eye on small, but powerful changes in our national and global societies will make a difference between organizations that struggle and those that are successful. Predicting how the retirement wave will impact your company’s strategies becomes easier when a keen eye is kept on research, trends and expert forecasts. Every organization should have an Office of the Future, where trends are studied, impacts analyzed and strategies in action long before change arrives.

Retention Agenda
     Believing that the worker shortage is far off will catch your company in a non-competitive position in only a few years.
     There are no quick fixes here. Given the changing demographics, every organization should have a task force charged with ensuring competitiveness for more-scarce workers.
     Lessons from the nursing shortage include: Hospitals that have established on-campus nursing schools; providing greater tuition assistance; changing the cultures to create the best-possible work environment; developing career ladders; and adjusting pay to be competitive and to align with job requirements.
 

Your Research-Based Retention Resource

Employee Retention Strategies
(602) 493-0585
info@employeeretentionstrategies.com