Retirement Employment Trends—Boom Or Bust?
My work as a Life Coach and a Retirement/Recareer Coach has so many interesting facets to it and has opened many doors of opportunity for me. One of those exciting opportunities occurred when I joined the Dulles Society of Human Resources Management (SHRM) several years ago. This organization consists of the upper level personnel management for many corporations in our area and globally. In my role as a retirement coach, I have presented several seminars on how a company’s employment policies affect the quality of retirement for their employees.
Recently, I had the privilege of co-leading a seminar with Tom Morris, a very seasoned out-placement and career management professional. His company—Morris & Associates, Inc.—is recognized as a leading career management company that finds other career opportunities for employees in downsizing situations.
Instead of providing information on how companies’ policies affect retirees, we teamed to present a seminar on how the coming wave of retirements will affect companies. Tom and I co-presented a seminar entitled The Graying of America Part II—Talent Acquisition and Retention.
As we prepared for this seminar, we each used our individual perspectives and experience as well as information we obtained by doing some additional research. The combination of our two backgrounds and perspectives led to a very lively and enthusiastic discussion at our monthly SHRM meeting.
By participating in this seminar, it made me look at retirement from the employer’s perspective. It magnified the reality that as people are leaving the workforce because of retirement, they will be creating intellectual and experiential gaps in the knowledge that companies have pretty much taken for granted. It was clear from our research and discussions with the seminar’s attendees that companies are not adequately focusing on this issue. Very few companies have programs in place to deal with the loss of their most experienced, talented, and skilled employees. Until they begin to set up mentoring programs to transfer knowledge to younger employees, they will be losing valuable intellectual capital that will be challenging to replace.
In 2012, SHRM and AARP conducted a joint survey. The results indicated that 72% of HR professionals reported that their organizations saw the loss of older workers and their knowledge as a serious future problem yet only 5% of those companies had implemented policies and strategies to address this anticipated loss of talent and knowledge. However, as companies realize that they will not be able to compete without creating programs to attract, retain, and re-train older workers to fill the knowledge gaps, they will be motivated to look for solutions.
A simple review of the ages for segments of the US population highlights the problems that Corporate America will be facing over the next several decades:
| BEGIN & END BIRTH DATES | # OF YRS | POPULATION SIZE | THE YEAR THEY BEGIN TURNING 65 YRS OLD | |
| Baby Boomers | 946 to 1964 | 18 | 78,000,000 | 2011 |
| Generation X | 1965 to 1975 | 10 | 47,000,000 | 2030 |
| Generation Y | 1976 to 1995 | 19 | 60,000,000 | 2041 |
| Echo Boomers | 1995 to 2013 | 18 | 77,000,000 | 2060 |
The immediate question is who will be available to fill the jobs that the baby boomers will be retiring from in unprecedented numbers? Successive generations just don’t have the raw numbers to meet America’s need. The good news for people who wish to continue working after 65 years old is that there will be a lot more options as the labor market tightens up.
As I have indicated in numerous newsletters, baby boomers don’t want the same kind of retirements that their parents and grandparents had. Many will want to continue working because of the many financial and non-financial benefits work provides. If you want to continue working, for whatever reason, you should stay current in your skill set so that when that time comes, you may be eligible for employment on your terms. Many of you might not want to leave work but you haven’t been given the flexibility of working part time, job sharing, phasing out of your job over time, or working from home.
Your challenge is to feel confident enough, instead of threatened, that there will be room for you in the future if you are interested in employment. You will be much more marketable if you keep your skills current and stay with the trends. Our economy in the US and globally is changing. We have to keep up or we will become obsolete.
Here’s what you can do to stay on top of your game in work and in life:
- Take classes and seminars to keep your skills and knowledge current
- Get a certification in a different field that promises employment
- Follow the trends in your area of interest and skills
- Create a strength-based resume
- Use social media sites like LinkedIn to network
- Approach the interview with enthusiasm and confidence
- Consider temping—30% of our workforce falls into that category today
Some of you who are leaving the work force will not want to include work in your retirement portfolio. For those of you who want to continue to be employed, I hope this information will be encouraging to you.
Enjoy making the best of your life for the rest of your life,
Dee
Dee Cascio
Author, speaker, Licensed Psychotherapist, Certified Life Coach, Retirement Lifestyle/ReCareer Coach, and Life and Work Transitions Strategies Coach.
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