5 Industries for Those Over 40
Employers deliberately seek, hire and respect older workers as valuable resources.
Herman Trend Alert: Global War for Talent June 20, 2007
Employers worldwide are stressed. They’re challenged to find, engage, and retain the skilled workers they need to manufacture their products and serve their customers. Some companies have had mission-critical jobs open for more than a year. One hospital has been looking for a physician for three years. Consultant Ira Wolfe’s “Perfect Labor Storm” is here.
What’s behind this “storm” is a combination of years of low birthrates in the developed countries with unprecedented global prosperity and shortages of trained workers. Complicating this difficult situation is the competency deficit and a lack of leadership. When the schools are not adequately preparing young people for work or college and employers haven’t been training their next generation of workers, it is a set-up for disaster.
In some countries, notably Mexico and China, the productivity simply isn’t there. According to fellow futurist Edward Gordon, “the productivity of China’s workers is only 14 percent of their United States counterparts.” When Joyce spoke at the first Human Capital Conference in Japan, back in 2000, the VP HR for Intel Asia complained that his productivity was one-third that of their US operations.
And the wages in both India and China are growing exponentially. According to a study by the World Bank, titled “Global Economic Prospects 2007”, real wages in China appreciated a whopping 110 percent between 1989 and 2004.
Advancing technologies address some of these deficits, but they only increase the demand for more highly skilled workers---in short supply. Offshore, though we find the schools in India, Germany, and elsewhere doing better at job-preparation, the training is insufficient to meet the increasing demand. Going forward, retaining and engaging top talent (being an Employer of Choice(R)) will be the global strategic competitive advantage.
Generational Workplace Woes
Today, we have four distinct generations sharing the workplace: the "Traditional" older workers, the Baby Boomers, Generation X, and Generation Y. http://hrblog.typepad.com/hrblog/2007/06/generational_wo.html
Honk If Your Company Loves Telecommuting
Those with incomes of less than $50000 -- the "mainstream" workforce -- weresignificantly more likely to move closer to work if affordable housing wereavailable than those with higher incomes. http://www.ere.net/inside-recruiting/news/honk-if-your-company-loves-telecommuting-180781.asp
What is reinventing retirement?
A 1970s Canadian life insurance marketing campaign painted drifting off into retirement as “Freedom 55”. It implied that after 55 a couple could retire, jump in their van, and hit the road. That may have been true in the Seventies, but many of today’s workers in the 50+ age bracket are not ready to ride off into the sunset – they’re busy paying college tuition, caring for an aging parent, or seeing themselves as “too young” for retirement. These people need or want to keep working well beyond 55. They are reinterpreting “Freedom 55” as the freedom to do what they want within the framework of a career. Those who do choose to retire are reinventing retirement as a time to work part time in a new field, launch a business, or continue with their expertise on a contract basis.
Career professionals can work with organizations to help transition-retiring workers as well as help older employees pre-plan for different options. For example, workplaces can adjust their policies to accommodate older workers by offering more flexibility and project driven opportunities. Those who view recruitment and retention of the best talent as a top priority may need to look no further than their current workforce, and offer a new career to a retiring worker.
Older workers who choose to stay on board have much to offer their employers, but increasingly report they feel marginalized or stereotyped. Career professionals can help employers get the most from all their employees, including those working past their expected retirement, by designing professional development courses and providing additional training that can level the playing field between older workers with on-the-job experience and younger coworkers with skills in new areas.
As workers retire, they take with them institutional memory, mentoring opportunities, and years of talent. This talent pool can continue to be utilized by pairing older and younger workers together to improve relations across the generations and pass on knowledge.
But I’m Not Ready!
The fact is many workers are just not ready to retire. Employees over 50 feel younger and healthier than their counterparts 50 years ago. They wonder what they will do with all the free time, and how, in a world where nothing is free, they are going to pay for it. Many enjoy their job, career, coworkers, and the sense of purpose successful fulltime employment offers.Career professionals can help older workers reinvent retirement so the transition is not a “here today, gone tomorrow” experience. At the same time, they can help employers get the most out of their employees who are bridging to retirement. Strategies include adjusting the pace of work by reducing hours, offering telecommuting, and encouraging older workers to take on assignments outside their current position’s responsibilities. Workers should help bridge themselves to retirement by developing other interests within and outside the organization; joining or becoming more active within a professional association; or volunteering in an area that interests them. For those workers who choose to retire, or reach a point in their career where it is expected, self-employment may be a more practical and economic bridge.
As for anything in life, planning is the key. The workforce is getting older, some workers will retire, others will not. There could be a labor shortage if older workers retire in droves before younger workers are ready to move into new positions. And the sheer number of baby boomers, compared with the smaller demographics of the immediately succeeding generations, could in itself precipitate a labor shortage. Employers need to be ready to address retirement issues before the demographic shift takes place.
Graduates Lack Life Skills
From: The Herman Group:
One of the refrains we often hear from employers is that graduates lack skills, particularly life skills. They tell us that many young people graduate from high school or college without knowing the basics; literacy, innumeracy, what it takes to hold a job, or balance a checkbook.
In a study by the Pew Charitable Trust, 50 percent of college graduates were found to be lacking in simple life skills. These grads were tested for three types of literacy skills; analyzing news stories and other prose, understanding documents, and having math skills needed for balancing checkbooks or figuring restaurant tips.
A new study just released by the American Institutes for research (AIR) , a behavioral and social science research organization, echoes Pew’s findings. More than half of the students nearing graduation at four-year colleges lacked the literacy skills to handle complex tasks, such as analyzing arguments in newspaper editorials or understanding credit card offers.
Students nearing graduation at two-year colleges scored even worse. Seventy-five percent of these students also did not have the basic skills. The AIR study was the first to target students closing in on graduation. The researchers utilized the same test as the National Assessment of Adult literacy, the United States government’s examination of English literacy among adults. Results of that government study, released in December, were similarly disappointing. The results reflected about five percent of U.S. adults are not literate.
All of these studies raise serious questions about college curricula as well as the skills students possess when they arrive at college. We are not surprised. A major Midwestern bank reported some years ago that they were testing all of their candidates for basic literacy and innumeracy. Sixty-eight percent of their applicants failed this basic assessment. (Imagine the time saved from interviewing unqualified applicants.) All of these outcomes do not bode well for the Unites States’ ability to compete in global markets.
Looking into the future, we see more employers engaging college instructors and training professionals to fill in the gap---to up-skill their fresh grads with just-in-time support so that the employers will not be adversely affected.
U.S. Economy
The US economy added 132,000 jobs in November, while the unemployment rate rose slightly to a still-low 4.5%. Job gains continued in several service-providing industries, including professional and business services (43,000) food services (34,000) and health care (28,000). Job declines were seen in construction (-29,000) and manufacturing (-115,000). The labor participation rate and the number of discouraged workers and persons marginally attached to the labor force remained essentially unchanged, as did the unemployment rates for all major demographic groups of workers. Average hourly earnings rose by 3 cents in November, to $16.94.Employers expect to face more competition to hire new college graduates from the Class of 2007, according to a new report from the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE). As a result, employers report plans to increase their starting salary offers by 4.6% over last year. Signing bonuses, however, will be used selectively and at about the same rate as 2006.
