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A LESSON IN WORKFOCE MANAGEMENT … ALL THE WAY FROM
KILIMANJARO
by James B. Weil
Managing Director-Successful Aging
LifeCare®, Inc.
One of the most wonderful aspects of adventure travel is that
you can learn a lot about yourself. Climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, for example,
was every bit as much an internal journey as it was an external one. I remember
summiting Kilimanjaro after several days of climbing, exhausted and exhilarated.
Looking down at its base nearly 20,000 feet away, I realized something that
is at once absurdly simple and deeply profound. We climb big mountains in one
way and one way only—by making slow, steady progress.
I believe the same could be said about the many business challenges
posed by America's aging workforce. After all, the aging of our workforce is
arguably the Kilimanjaro of Human Resources issues. It presents huge challenges
in virtually every area of HR (benefits, compensation, recruiting, retention,
succession management, diversity training, work/life, etc.), none of which can
be overcome in a sprint. The best way to summit these challenges is to take
slow, steady steps.
Here are a few of the measured steps that all employers should
consider when approaching their own aging workforce challenges:
Step 1. Commit to dealing with the aging of your workforce
as a strategic workforce management issue.
As employees age, their values, work goals, personal needs,
hopes and fears all shift in important ways. As a result, they present an entirely
different set of workforce management issues than younger employees do and they
won't be motivated by the same incentives. For example, they begin to ask themselves
what they really want to do with the rest of their lives. Are they doing work
they truly love? Do they feel valued or discriminated against by their employer?
Questions like these—and the issues that mid-life brings—require that
you think about your aging workforce more strategically. “Baby Boomers”
account for over a third of the nation's current workforce, and roughly 76 million
of them are now entering mid-life. That makes the aging of the workforce a strategic
issue for everybody.
Step 2. Develop a plan that involves all of the appropriate
departments and functions in your organization.
Keep in mind that conquering your organization's aging workforce
issues must be a team undertaking. While the responsibility for dealing with
these issues might ultimately rest with Human Resources, it's the organization
as a whole that is affected by and must make progress on these issues. Unless
you coordinate your efforts as a team, you'll never reach your goals.
A useful way to begin sketching out your plan is to ask yourself
some key questions. Is there a clear, shared understanding of the aging workforce
management issues your organization faces? To successfully scale these issues,
what changes in benefits, compensation or other HR practices might be appropriate?
Who should be involved in creating these changes … from which departments
and divisions … at what point should they be involved? How should your
efforts be communicated with employees? The list goes on.
The point is a detailed plan of attack will be essential to
successfully summit your particular workforce challenges. Your plan should anticipate
how best to retain valued employees who might be considering early retirement,
just as it will need to address how to make early retirement an attractive option
to less effective employees. Toyota recently offered early retirement to several
hundred employees, positioning “retirement” as a time for people to
take charge of their lives more fully than ever before and freely explore their
options. The company also gave employees the tools and information necessary
to do so, along with the usual financial and benefit information offered in
a retirement program. Toyota's strategic planning and well-thought-out approach
paid off: by appealing directly to the sensibilities of their older employees
(50 and above), the company achieved 175 percent of its target for the offering.
Step 3. Keep your options open where retirees are
concerned.
According to a host of experts, including U.S. Secretary of
Labor, Elaine Chao, a severe labor shortage will hit American business within
the next 10 years. In fact, some sectors are already feeling its effects. In
a recent survey of 2,700 Human Resources professionals, conducted by the Society
for Human Resource Management and the American Association of Retired Persons
(AARP), 62 percent of those surveyed said their companies had already rehired
retirees as consultants.
Retirees are an experienced corps of workers that can be tapped
if and when necessary. And they can be used in a variety of capacities—as
full-time, part-time or seasonal workers, for example, or as mentors for younger
workers and new hires. They can also be used as lobbyists, grass-roots campaigners
and advocates in their local communities. Older employees possess in-depth company
knowledge and are often extremely dedicated to their work since their responsibilities
as parents are behind them. Maintaining a relationship with these seasoned resources
is a low-cost, high-return proposition.
The aging of your workforce will create important strategic
challenges for your organization but they don't have to be insurmountable. Take
it from someone who has been to the mountaintop—slow, steady progress is
the only way to go.
About the Author
James B. Weil is managing director of Successful Aging at LifeCare®,
Inc., the exclusive provider of Life Event Management® Services
and one of the country's largest privately owned employee benefits organizations.
Weil is recognized as one of the nation's foremost authorities on issues of
business and aging. In his role at LifeCare, he is responsible for developing
new and innovative programs such as the company's suite of Successful AgingSM
Solutions, designed to help employers successfully manage the needs of their
aging workers.
Media contact: Jim Derivan
LifeCare, Inc.
pr1@lifecare.com
203-291-4196
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