American Firms Want to Keep Older Workers a Bit Longer
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Re: American Firms Want to Keep Older Workers a Bit Longer
#2> With 10,000 baby boomers turning 65 each day, businesses are scrambling to find ways to slow an exodus of the most experienced employees and ensure that they pass along their knowledge before they leave.
Knowledge transfer should be baked into the day-to-day culture of work, not something desperately scrambled for during someone's last week. Those few companies with meaningful training and mentoring programs know this.
> The plant [...] has an apprentice program for millennials, but there’s a shortage of Generation X workers. “We’ve got a big gap in the middle, so we have to keep talented people in their 60s a little longer,”
Here we go again with the "shortage of workers". In one article it's tech workers. Here it's GenX workers. A "shortage" of a good is pretty meaningless if you don't mention the price you're offering to pay for that good. Unless they're saying they literally can't find qualified GenX workers at any price--That would be a real shortage. Otherwise, maybe you need to just offer a little more money to find skilled mid-career workers nowadays.
With so many people under-employed or out of work, it borders on insulting to claim there's a shortage of workers.
Re: American Firms Want to Keep Older Workers a Bit Longer
#3> With 10,000 baby boomers turning 65 each day, businesses are scrambling to find ways to slow an exodus of the most experienced employees and ensure that they pass along their knowledge before they leave. Knowledge transfer should be baked into the day-to-day culture of work, not something desperately scrambled for during someone's last week. Those few companies with meaningful training and mentoring programs know t…
>Unless they're saying they literally can't find qualified GenX workers at any price--That would be a real shortage
Pretty sure they mean they have plenty of 60 years who have been working there for 40 years and plenty of 20 year olds who just started but not a lot of 40 year old with 20 years experience to keep the transfer of knowledge smooth.
which unless some one has a time machine is a thing you can't find at literally any price.
Re: American Firms Want to Keep Older Workers a Bit Longer
#4> With 10,000 baby boomers turning 65 each day, businesses are scrambling to find ways to slow an exodus of the most experienced employees and ensure that they pass along their knowledge before they leave. Knowledge transfer should be baked into the day-to-day culture of work, not something desperately scrambled for during someone's last week. Those few companies with meaningful training and mentoring programs know t…
It reminds me of the Porsche 911 shortage I'm facing around here. I've been to dealer after dealer and I just can't find one who'll sell me one. I've got the $33k that I'm told an average new car costs and am ready to buy today... but nothing.
You can't say shortage without factoring price. For enough money (probably not even that much compared to what I've seen business waste on frivolities) there'd be a line of retirees looking to get back into the biz.
Re: American Firms Want to Keep Older Workers a Bit Longer
#5> With 10,000 baby boomers turning 65 each day, businesses are scrambling to find ways to slow an exodus of the most experienced employees and ensure that they pass along their knowledge before they leave. Knowledge transfer should be baked into the day-to-day culture of work, not something desperately scrambled for during someone's last week. Those few companies with meaningful training and mentoring programs know t…
I feel it's a cycle of mistrust. Companies don't want to spend as much time training junior workers or apprentices because they often leave shortly after achieving proficiency. But this lack of perceived loyalty comes from a rational viewpoint. After the shift in business culture in the 80s, where workers were laid off in bulk even if the company was in good financial health, workers woke up to the new reality. (To be fair, the era of the "company man" only encompasses half a century, so it's not necessarily a right or natural phenomenon)
I remember in the 80s and early 90s it was common for a salaried worker to stay at the same company for decades. Since the 2000s, it appears to be less prevalent.
The solution would appear to be to make conditions good and wages competitive for the newly-trained junior workers to improve retention. However, some industries risk their competitiveness with labor costs above a certain level. I wonder how much of the shortage is due to the intransigence of capital versus true limits for competitive pay. I suspect the former for almost all specialized positions experiencing shortfalls, such as pilots, machinists, CNC operators, and millwrights. For unskilled labor I suspect that the wages cannot climb much higher without harming profits or risking competition from overseas.
Re: American Firms Want to Keep Older Workers a Bit Longer
#6> With 10,000 baby boomers turning 65 each day, businesses are scrambling to find ways to slow an exodus of the most experienced employees and ensure that they pass along their knowledge before they leave. Knowledge transfer should be baked into the day-to-day culture of work, not something desperately scrambled for during someone's last week. Those few companies with meaningful training and mentoring programs know t…
I feel it's a cycle of mistrust. Companies don't want to spend as much time training junior workers or apprentices because they often leave shortly after achieving proficiency. But this lack of perceived loyalty comes from a rational viewpoint. After the shift in business culture in the 80s, where workers were laid off in bulk even if the company was in good financial health, workers woke up to the new reality. (To b…
I read in the newspaper that Boeing has a skills gap with their machinists. The skilled older ones are retiring, and the younger ones aren't experienced enough. There are few in the middle.
What happened? When they had layoffs, the machinist union rules specified the ones with the least number of years of service got laid off first. This left Boeing with a very unbalanced workforce.
Re: American Firms Want to Keep Older Workers a Bit Longer
#7> With 10,000 baby boomers turning 65 each day, businesses are scrambling to find ways to slow an exodus of the most experienced employees and ensure that they pass along their knowledge before they leave. Knowledge transfer should be baked into the day-to-day culture of work, not something desperately scrambled for during someone's last week. Those few companies with meaningful training and mentoring programs know t…
>Unless they're saying they literally can't find qualified GenX workers at any price--That would be a real shortage Pretty sure they mean they have plenty of 60 years who have been working there for 40 years and plenty of 20 year olds who just started but not a lot of 40 year old with 20 years experience to keep the transfer of knowledge smooth. which unless some one has a time machine is a thing you can't find at li…
This reminds me of agile.
Look at the short term, do what you need to achieve those objectives. Oh, the long term matters now. Ooops, I'll add get some "20-years experience guys" to the next sprint.
Re: American Firms Want to Keep Older Workers a Bit Longer
#8> With 10,000 baby boomers turning 65 each day, businesses are scrambling to find ways to slow an exodus of the most experienced employees and ensure that they pass along their knowledge before they leave. Knowledge transfer should be baked into the day-to-day culture of work, not something desperately scrambled for during someone's last week. Those few companies with meaningful training and mentoring programs know t…
Knowledge transfer should be baked into the day-to-day culture of work, not something desperately scrambled for during someone's last week. Those few companies with meaningful training and mentoring programs know this.
In my observation, it's very few companies. Also, I don't think it's as easy as just saying it should happen. For one thing, hiring has changed. A lot of tech workers from my generation tended to be fairly multi-disciplinary, but as a company matures, they tend to hire from standardized skill sets such as the mainstream branches of engineering.
Case in point, I'm 52, and I was hired kinda by accident because I had a connection and was in the right place at the right time. Nobody ever asked for my skill set. My knowledge is based on having a pretty good understanding of optics, electronics, mechanics, math, computation, and so forth. But we haven't ever deliberately hired anybody like that, so there's nobody whom I can even transfer my knowledge to.
My job involves solving a lot of really weird problems under pressure, such as when a production line goes down and nobody knows why. I kind of thrive on it, plus it's a niche that I was able to carve out, to make myself employable without a mainstream engineering degree. But I can't think of why somebody would even want to learn my job.
The best thing to do with us old guys, is let us keep working, to do the stuff that you don't want to burden the bright young kids with.
Here we go again with the "shortage of workers". In one article it's tech workers. Here it's GenX workers. A "shortage" of a good is pretty meaningless if you don't mention the price you're offering to pay for that good.
Indeed. A labor shortage is the same as wage inflation. Show me the money.
Re: American Firms Want to Keep Older Workers a Bit Longer
#9There's a gap there because the firms didn't want to pay the GenX generation after they got trained. They hopped on to the next company and progressed their careers.
Take better care of your employees, pay them their market value, factor in some work-life-balance, and they will stay.
Re: American Firms Want to Keep Older Workers a Bit Longer
#10> With 10,000 baby boomers turning 65 each day, businesses are scrambling to find ways to slow an exodus of the most experienced employees and ensure that they pass along their knowledge before they leave. Knowledge transfer should be baked into the day-to-day culture of work, not something desperately scrambled for during someone's last week. Those few companies with meaningful training and mentoring programs know t…
>Unless they're saying they literally can't find qualified GenX workers at any price--That would be a real shortage Pretty sure they mean they have plenty of 60 years who have been working there for 40 years and plenty of 20 year olds who just started but not a lot of 40 year old with 20 years experience to keep the transfer of knowledge smooth. which unless some one has a time machine is a thing you can't find at li…
Presumably there are people with industry experience, just not experience in your particular company, and they would easily integrate (there are of course exceptions). It then again becomes a matter of how much are you willing to pay to attract them. Additionally, you could pay extra for a substandard 30 year experience person or an excellent 10-15 year person to fill those gaps. This is supply and demand.