People born between 1946 and 1964, Baby Boomers, are reaching their age of retirement at the present times. However, many still want to be part of t
People born between 1946 and 1964, Baby Boomers, are reaching their age of retirement at the present times. However, many still want to be part of the workforce, keep their skillsets updated and fresh, and contribute to the organizations they are part of.
Imagine you are part of a small organization that has decided to implement a high-tech approach to expand its outreach. This will require your leadership to guide and direct your team to embrace the new tools investd in. Your team leaders comprise of high performing employees between the age of 70 and 74, who have historically shown resistance to new technology within the workspace. They express that the new tools are disruptive and difficult to implement.
Develop your 4 – 5 page, APA-formatted response to this scenario within your assignment and answer:
● What challenges would you expect from baby boomers in general? What practices and successful techniques would you implement to manage baby boomers for this project?
● What communication methods for overcoming multigenerational challenges would you use in order to achieve your business goals?
● How would you communicate feedback in a way that is valuable to this generation? You may want to review this article for more ideas. (article uploaded)
You should reference a minimum of four credible sources to support your responses (peer-reviewed). Be sure to properly identify, cite, and reference any source you refer to in this assignment.
Changing Demographics:
• There are three important trends in the modern workforce’s demographics that concern the Baby Boomer generation (Brown et al. 2011)
1. There is a greater percentage of older adults (65+) participating in the workforce than there used to be
2. Overall, people tend to retire at a later age 3. A greater number of individuals are reentering the workforce after retirement 4. Baby Boomers make up between 48%-57% of the modern workforce (Deal 2011)
Projected working age population and total employment, EU25, 2002–2050
Source: European Commission, 2007
Engaging Baby Boomers in the Workplace Prepared by the Boston College Center for Work & Family
October 2013
The Strengths of the Baby Boomer Generation (Bell and Narz 2007; Huggins 2011)
• Positive attributes that have helped Baby Boomers succeed in the workplace: o Long-term experience o Career-oriented future planning and goals o Independence in their decision-making o Less commitment to authority and a workplace hierarchy than their parents o Team-oriented work collaboration o Competitive nature due to career advancement goals o Easily adapting the working patterns of different generations such as the use of
smartphones (Steelcase 2009) The Challenges of the Baby Boomer Generation
• Challenges that face Baby Boomers and their employers: o Intergenerational conflicts (Koeppel 2011):
Incoming Millennials prioritize work-life balance over career development goals characteristic of the Baby Boomer generation
The perception that Baby Boomers’ delayed retirement prevents the success of other employees
Different outlooks on the importance and acceptability of technology in the workplace
o Becoming the “Sandwich Generation” (Dolgen 2013). Baby Boomers feel the economic and emotional strain of taking care of both children and parents
o Prone to workplace burnout (Lancaster 2004) o Tend to oppose or disvalue feedback opportunities o Competitive nature can lead to conflict
How to Engage Baby Boomers in the Workplace Make sure employees have a choice: Workers must feel that they have a choice – whether to retire or whether to stay. The option to choose is a retention tool. Provide Opportunities for Flexibility; Learning and Development:
• In Italy, research demonstrates that employees are less likely to want to retire if they have the opportunity to continue to learn on the job, reduce their hours, and enjoy the company of their supervisor and co-workers (in Shultz & Henkens, 2010).
• In Holland, employees were more likely to retire early if they worked long hours, had high workload, had heavy physical work, or lacked challenge in their jobs (in Shultz & Henkens, 2010). Therefore employees will be less inclined to retire if they control their schedules, are challenged by the work, but not overtaxed, and are physically capable of successfully accomplishing the tasks. Further, Conen et al. (2011) indicate that employers in the Netherlands have become more willing to retain but not to recruit older workers, although both retention and especially recruitment of older workers decline in times of recessions.
• In the US, researchers find that job flexibility and adaptability of jobs to older workers’ needs and a supportive work culture are among the most important retention strategies used by employers (in Szinovacz, 2011).
Support the difficulties of the “Sandwich Generation” (Coughlin 2010)
• Researchers argue that employers can do four things to help with the growing economic and emotional difficulties of providing for two different generations:
o Provide Information: Help your employees learn about the benefits and services that will aid them. Acknowledging their struggle as a wider phenomenon is important.
o Provide Flexibility: Caretakers schedules need to incorporate the needs of their families—being flexible is important so that they don’t feel strained between providing at work and home.
o Provide Financial Training: Provide employees with financial training that ensures their economic future while also allowing them to meet current financial burdens. One study found that after financial training, 80% of Baby Boomers reported
that they felt prepared for their retirement needs after previous anxiety. o Provide Support: Caregivers use work as a respite from the challenges at home so both
formal and informal support groups through work that allow them to make meaningful connections lead to a greater sense of well-being.
Understand what motivates Baby Boomers (Barry 2011)
• Baby Boomers strongly identify with their occupational success o They are more motivated by acknowledgement and recognition than by feedback o They feel comfortable and useful in mentoring positions
These mentoring positions can be useful segues into intergenerational training programs
o They want post-retirement opportunities and connections through the workplace for those opportunities There has been a national growth in the number of individuals doing freelance
consulting after retirement (Schawbel 2012) Provide networking opportunities that encourage these professional
connections
Understand what frustrates Baby Boomers
• Because Baby Boomers tend to question authority, workplace decisions need to be transparent and inclusive whenever possible (Barry 2011)
• Being perceived as replaceable by a younger worker discredits the experience Baby Boomers value highly in themselves
o Focusing on retention combats losing too much experience too quickly in the workforce. Baby Boomers tend to be motivated by monetary incentives and flexible schedules as well as workplace commitment to continued education (Houlihan 2011)
• Being stereotyped (Blauth et al. 2011) o Nearly 1 in 3 Baby Boomers dissatisfied with their job report that they have experienced
age discrimination (The Associated Press 2011) o Popular stereotypes of Baby Boomers include
Being micro-managers Being ruthlessly competitive Being technologically challenged Being inflexible towards new methods
o Research shows that the higher the managerial level of an employee, the more likely they are to use age-based stereotypes in their decision-making
o Training across all levels and all generations has to take place in the workforce for employees to effectively work together
o Additionally, providing Baby Boomers with training opportunities communicates that they are viewed an investment-worthy employees
Best Practices for Managing Generations in the Workplace
• Companies that are successful in both recruiting and retaining across generations (Murphy and Greco 2003)
o Research their own employee demographics o Match their workforce to their customer base o Make intergenerational boards and councils o Support continued education o Reward successful retention
o Offer horizontal movement o Offer a wide selection of personalized benefits o Have mentoring programs o Have flexible schedules
• Examples of companies implementing these practices (Roundtree 2012) o The MITRE Corporation offers their employees phased retirement with increased
flexibility o CVS Caremark allows employees to transfer to different regions based on seasonal
conditions (i.e. snowbirding). o Cornell University provides post-retirement workshops on topics like consulting and
volunteerism Additionally, employees are kept “on-call” to volunteer insight based on their
experience at the request of current employees o Central Baptist Hospital restructured succession planning so that it not only included
early and mid-life career but late-life career planning as well so that they could retain older employees for a longer period of time
o GE pairs senior leaders with junior leaders for meetings each week to share knowledge and information
o LVM and Lufthansa offer multi-media training to all employees, regardless of age. o Siemens offers job rotation through its People-ShareNet database that is used to
worldwide deploy experts company wide, thus fostering knowledge transfer. o Michelin, the French tire manufacturer, implements a practice called ‘‘doublage’’,
which refers to an advanced model of succession planning where those employees who hold specific valuable knowledge about a product are allowed to choose their own successors and mentor them over a period of time.
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