In the short-term, employers will need to focus mainly on slowing the exodus of older workers whose skills and knowledge are most valued by the company, while at the same time, preparing successors to perform in critical roles and learn as much as possible before these expert resources leave the workplace. Attracting and retaining older workers will gain importance on the
corporate agenda as it becomes clear that the largest available untapped workforce segment is older adults, most of whom are still healthy and able to contribute long after they retire. The best way to do this is to provide the kind of jobs that mature adults want, and to keep them engaged by continuing to treat them as valued members of the team. One size will not fit all
older adults, so a “plug and play” view of employment options for the aging population will not be successful.

Both the employer and the older employee will find the future world of work to be a rather difficult transition because both are still thinking very traditionally about the latter years of employment. Even more concerning, employers still tend to look at upcoming retirements as cost-saving opportunities – this is dangerous and short-sighted.

Longer term, employers will need to improve talent utilization throughout every employee’s tenure with their companies, through a continuous improvement-style approach that involves periodic skill and career interest assessments, training, and alignment of the individual’s interests and abilities to the needs of the organization so that they remain relevant and engaged. There will be no
room for wasted talent in tomorrow’s nimble and talentpoor organizations so there can be no one whose skills or knowledge are allowed to become obsolete.

Consequently, more sophisticated solutions will be required to manage the talent demands of business. This new approach to talent management will also extend to individuals’ preparation for retirement, as the employer takes a greater role in defining what retirement means to older employees. In order to remain relevant in the post-retirement-age world of older workers, it will be important for employers to provide the professional resources necessary to assist those who are planning for transition to develop effective plans for the second half of their lives. These plans will need to be realistic and achievable, given a host of possible work-life balance options and a variety of potential financial impacts from both the individuals’ choices and their
personal situations.

Meanwhile, in order to avoid major fiscal crises caused by unsustainable numbers of older citizens receiving pensions and social security payments, governments will need to inspire change from both employers and individuals toward getting the aging population employed for a longer working life. Some governments are already making progress in this area, and demonstrating that it is, indeed, possible to find win-win solutions to the aging workforce conundrum.

Conclusions

The first priority of today’s employers should be forecasting and workforce planning for the future, when much of today’s key talent will retire and there will be few available candidates to replace them. Without such critical analysis and planning, it is likely that many companies will find they are incapable of growing their businesses and meeting customer needs because of unexpected and pervasive talent shortages in critical roles. Two of the key reasons that employers are not doing more to try and recruit or retain older workers as part of their talent management strategies are simply that they neither understand how to do so effectively, nor grasp why this should be a high priority for them now.

While employers have done much in recent years to provide better work-life balance for working parents, they have not yet made sense of what work-life balance means to the older worker; namely that these individuals expect to work differently in flexible work arrangements where they can work more on their own terms, not the employer’s. There is a growing proportion of this population that may be quite willing and able to continue contributing for years to come, if they are engaged and encouraged to do so. The best way to attract older workers is to have jobs they want, and they tend to want part-time jobs. The employer who wins the competitive war for talent will be the one who determines how to make plenty of part-time jobs available to attract older workers, and how to redesign existing jobs into part-time roles in order to retain current staff a few years longer.

As talent becomes more difficult to find and retain, it will be essential for employers to optimize talent flow by ensuring alignment of employees’ skills with the needs of the business over the course of each individual’s career.

This requires strategic recruitment; ongoing assessment of skills, interests and abilities at regular intervals; alignment of abilities with the current and future needs of the business; and making lifelong learning a high priority. The conundrum of the older workforce lies in the fact that the most in-demand individuals with the strongest skills are also those who have the greatest financial flexibility to retire early or explore other options throughout their careers, and particularly as they grow older. This means that the people who are most needed are also those most likely to leave, taking their skills, knowledge and experience with them. Savvy employers will develop innovative ways of retaining these critically important contributors as long as possible.
Nonetheless, it is inevitable that even the most engaged employees will eventually retire. Managing the talent pipeline to ensure that high potential employees are identified as potential successors and developed at the same rate as the older workers who are exiting will be an important aspect of workforce management in the future. An effective knowledge transfer plan that is properly executed can make an enormous difference in an employer’s ability to retain critical intellectual capital and sustain consistent performance levels in the transition from retiree to successor.

Meanwhile, many national governments’ funding for pension and social security programs is projected to fall short of the financial requirements because there simply will be too many people receiving funds from the government programs and too few actively engaged in the workforce paying for these programs through their payroll taxes. If a government is seeking to expand employment of older adults within its population to reduce the pension burden, part of the answer appears to lie in its willingness to be an instrument of change and require employers to take action to address the recruitment and retention of older workers through new incentives and stronger requirements.

A sustainable and growing economy will not be possible in the talent-poor future without a strong and vibrant labor market that includes older workers and other groups that are currently under-represented in today’s workforce. National governments need to focus their attention on talent development and utilization strategy if they want to have a competitive labor market that will help to strengthen the country’s economy for the future. The challenge for national governments is to determine how to align the interests and abilities of mature adults with the interests and requirements of employers, and to do this before the pension bubble bursts, wreaking havoc on other areas of society.

Solving this puzzle should be high priority on the agenda of today’s government leaders.

Source : The New Agenda for an Older Workforce Manpower Inc.