Research & Writing
Visit this theme park for research, writing, reviews and announcements from contributors to Change Rangers. We will scout four territories to round up feature content that will encourage you to add your voice to the conversation.
April 30, 2007
Reframing Opportunity-April 2007 Presentations
Mark Venning of Change Rangers made two presentations this April 2007 on "Re-working Retirement and Career Longeveity"
Titled Boomer Talent on the Shifting Tide:Reframing Opportunity, the presentations were targeted to two different groups - on April 16 at the CERIC- CANNEXUS National Career Development Conference (to career professionals in public and private sector environments) and on April 18 at the Staffing Edge Symposium (to recruiters, owners and managers of staffing firms).
The core message to both groups was that the issue we are facing as a society is not retirement, but longevity and as Theodore Roszak says in Longevity Revolution - "As longevity assumes the dimensions of a second lifetime… terms like “seniors”, “elders”, “retired” – run the risk of blurring more than they clarify . . ."
If work is to be part of that "second lifetime" says Mark, then what career professionals and recruiters need to look at is reframing opportunity- rethinking what is a workforce and encouraging options for careers in later life or in other words promoting career longevity as part of active aging.
Highlights!
Audit our aging workforce . . .
- Greater numbers express desire and / or need to work longer – but differently
- Check in – how are they looking at their later life situation right now?
- What is their swing between “silent detachment” & “creative engagement”?
- Boomers 40’s and early 50’s – what will ongoing engagement look like?
- 55 + age band - how will their contributions continue to add value?
Change relationship to work . . . aging talent won’t go away, it just displaces!
- Fluid, flexible options for later-life careers
- Compressed work week, contracted terms
- Trend towards self employment
- Creative process - your own portfolio design
Our “Life Course” is redefining . . . The “blurred exit” vs. the “crisp exit”
- Retirement is still a standardized event
- BUT not like time past - you stopped work and died
- Manage exits better – out with the crisp!
- “Boomer Alumni” – more than a retiree club, re-contract the relationship