Get With the Program.

Is Your Organization on the Boomer Curve?

If your organization is “on the curve” with the Boomer demographics and you are a business that is interested in building on your brand … then perhaps you could be a leader in developing an “ageless” strategy for retention.

Enough ink has been spilled over the potential fallout in organizations due to the wave of Boomer “retirements” over the next decade. The recent debate this summer on “Mandatory Retirement”, one more time reminds us that we are still operating in the old mind set. The announcement in August of the Ontario government plan to introduce new legislation to eliminate the policy again sparked the talk about the affect on pension plans, worker’s rights and the employment market.

Of course, not all organizations are “on the curve” with respect to this issue, not having the demographics of a 50 plus workforce. And those that are may not have the mind set or the strategy to capitalize on what could be a way to build on the brand value of an organization.

There are perceptions on the part of some organizations that employees in the later stages of their work life don’t need or want professional development or career management; or that the organization will not benefit in the long term from the investment in helping them.

While there may be many examples of people who have not kept up with on the job learning or career management, these perceptions are not always accurate in a world where older workers are more in tune with the reality of needing or choosing to work longer. Nor is it accurate that older workers and their organizations don’t benefit from a career management strategy.

I recall a senior executive at one of the major Canadian banks telling me privately, “I’m 57 and I’ve been here for 25 years! There’s more I could do but I won’t see it stuck in this functional role. No one has ever asked me to add value in important areas for the bank’s future that would better use my best strengths, rather than let me drift through my last years here.”

If your organization is “on the curve” with the Boomer demographics and you are a business that is interested in building on your brand to attract customers, ensure future identity in the marketplace and get the most with the best people, then perhaps you could be a leader in developing an “ageless” strategy for retention. Part of a cost effective program might be to involve people in recruitment and marketing activities, those great people who might otherwise have fixed their mind on leaving in an unceremonious retirement.

To present learning opportunities and provide a continuous challenge, the following profitable solutions would also help to engage and retain workers in their later life careers:

 Develop learning programs that align with the needs of the organization and are linked with an older workers performance needs.
 Conduct self directed skills, interests, needs and values assessments as part of a bi-annual career planning exercise.

 Create inter-generational networking opportunities to promote better understanding of differing attitudes, cross-coaching or mentoring.

 Explore opportunities for valued performers with diverse competencies to move cross functionally in the organization rather than stagnate in the same position.

 Provide pre-retirement planning seminars that focus on non-financial issues including examination of late life career management plans, options for flexible work arrangements, adapting to post organizational life and understanding of the aging process.

Changing the culture of some organizations to incorporate these retention strategies may be necessary if they are faced with potential loss of talent in a competitive market. The efforts to stimulate cultural change, address retirement issues and to advocate “late life career options” for older workers are areas of opportunity for Human Resource Professionals and Career Management consultants who work with organizations.

In their Leadership Survey 2000, “Where Did All the Workers Go? The Challenges of the Aging Workforce”, the Canadian Labour and Business Centre presented an analysis of some of the views of management and labour in both the public and private sector. The following is a summary of some the results from the management responses by size of organization to issues related to retirement.

 Larger organizations (1000+) are more active in addressing the replacement of retirees than small firms (1 – 99) reflecting the older age structure of workforces in larger organizations.

 The frequency of certain employee related retirement issues is higher in medium (100 – 999) and large organizations than in small organizations… requests for phased-in retirement, pre-retirement counselling, training and the issue of absenteeism.

 Managers in larger organizations (69%) perceive that retirement issues have increased in importance relative to other human resource issues.

The process of “re-working retirement” will be the career issue of the decade, beginning with the front end Boomers whom turn 58 this year. Beyond the retirement income hype and the talent shortage talk comes the real conversation around “what is the longevity of an organization without a flexible, fluid and ageless workforce?”

It’s interesting to see some Human Resource leaders are themselves in a later life career trajectory and could be the influencer in forming a strategy to “build on the brand” as a good place to work and do business with and maybe even win a real “word on the street” award as the “ageless employer of choice”.

Boomer's Reprise: 50+ Career Integration Planning

“Re-working Retirement” is the name of the game this decade. The word is out. It is not a retreat or withdrawal. A “reprise” on the other hand is a renewal of an action or movement!

In Canada, as of 2004 - 46% of Boomers (1946 – 1966) are close to retirement or pre-retirement years. For people in “pre- retirement thinking”, who are challenged by change and choice, the pattern of life evolves beyond yesterday’s version of retirement. And we are living longer in the process.

While integrating work and life choices - managing time and finances, (for ourselves, elder parents and young adult children); we ride on a wave of decisions that land on shore earlier and more often than expected.

"Boomer's Reprise" a personalized Change Rangers program helps and supports as you:

 Reprise your “life’s journey” and set you on the road with renewed definition.
 Design a strategic “career integration” plan for the integration of work, community action, personal desires, learning and relationship building for later life.
 Connect and contract with organizations in search of results through senior expertise.

A $2500 program over a 12 month period includes 12 hours of one to one discussion, career and financial assessments, development of self marketing materials and administrative support - even if you decide to take a break before you activate your reprise.

Old Worms. New Fish. How Does Retirement Find New Reference?

Old Worms! Past Notions!

New Fish! Fresh Ideas!

It may take some years to truly get past notions on retirement, to hook into fresh ideas. As long as we hear people talk about demanding work environments and end that stressful discussion with the old worm phrase - ”I’m just counting the days ‘til I retire!”, do you suppose new fish will fly or fry?

The old fish still swim into financial planning waters. Just count the retirement planning books and programs on the market. Of course planning for later life does require the basic grasp of health and wealth issues. But just once it would be refreshing to see new fish swimming first.

Retirement is not the warm destination we continue to make it be. “Counting the days ‘til I retire!” What and where are we running to with that phrase? Ask an 80 something person in a long term health care facility how they counted their days ‘til retirement?

If the pace of working in the organizational world is that demanding and you are going to worm your way through it for the next 7 or 11 years, how would it be you take time right now to catch some fresh fish? How far ashore are you from 80 or 90? Twenty, twenty-five, thirty years?

Fresh fish is working on a strategic plan for the integration of work, community action, personal desires, learning and relationship building for later life. It’s not about retirement. It’s about renewal or a “reprise” of the career (life’s journey) you created over many years up to now.

Many will say including me that we shouldn’t use the worm “retirement” to spread the good news about later life careers (journeys). Well in order to catch new fish, I’ve come to the conclusion we will need to use the old worm, if we want the worm to turn.

It’s hard to erase over 50 years of the industrial age notion of retirement. But the secret to better quality longevity will not be based in the “destination view” of retirement. If you do want a destination, maybe it is the long term health care facility. Check your “health and wealth plan” as frequently as you need, but the active plan for later life, “the integration plan” is the one water that fresh fish will survive in much more freely and keep you from “counting the days”!

For more information or work on an “integration plan”, stay tuned or better still - hire Change Rangers to help you turn the worm!

Get the Message!

If you missed the message in the "Theme Park Headline" in the header of the Research & Writing page of this web journal, then here it is!

A Star Burning View
Over the last two decades of fast paced change, speed driven business cycles, and stressed out workplaces - your career may have exactly been “a swift running course”.

Perhaps the pollution of careerism flooding web sites and bookshelves has distorted your view of career, and now in later life - this is the time you want to integrate your work into your world in a productive way on your terms.

Health being well, as we Boomers journey through our later life career over the next decade; we face longevity like no other generation in history.

And the concept of retirement born in the Industrial Age model has new translation. We do have options.

If Retirement is that “sacred place” on life’s journey, then how (depending on your age in 2004), will you spend another potential 20 years or more - burning your star across the heavens?

Executives and business professionals – “star burning” on that later life pilgrimage, contact Change Rangers – “the leading voice on career longevity”.

Mark Venning Presents at CIPS Toronto. Re-working Retirement

On February 18th, Mark Venning made a presentation to members of CIPS Toronto (Canadian Information Processing Society) at the Ontario Club. The small yet enthusiastic group were engaged in the discussion around the Change Rangers theme "Re-working Retirement".

Mark challenged the group to rethink the meaning of the word career itself. As many Boomers are looking to stay engaged and move forward over the next 10 years, how work is crafted into the big picture of "life's journey" through later life, will require planning outside traditional career patterns.

For more infomation about CIPS visit www.cipstoronto.ca

Re-working Retirement: How Will You Manage It?

The next 15 years it will be another coming of age for Boomers as the notion of “freedom 55” struggles with “too young to retire”. With this cohort, retirement is up for reinvention for as a society we are living longer and hopefully healthier lives. This will challenge Boomers to think often and earlier about later life career options with recurring questions.

What is my career plan that will span the years ahead? How do I evaluate and plan my health, wealth, relationships and personal purpose for today and tomorrow?

The desire or need to retire before or after that time marker of 65, will shift as the years go by, influenced by several factors from the state of your health and wealth, to how you view what you’re going to do with your time.

And if you do decide to “retire early”, how will you manage to pay for it?

A Globe & Mail article by Elizabeth Church, (May 12, 2003) stated that Canada’s largest corporations face mounting demands on cash and higher expenses because of deepening losses in employee pension plans: “Only 23 of 104 companies on the SandP/TSX index with defined-benefit pension plans showed a funding surplus in 2002. Collectively, these companies saw a pension funding shortfall of more than $18.7 billion in 2002. While most companies say they have the cash to make good – this is cash that won’t be available for other purposes such as reinvesting in the business. This funding crunch comes as the baby boomer bulge enters their retirement years.”

Again in the 2003 survey of 1,000 Canadians by Desjardins Financial Security, only 16% declared a high degree of confidence in their ability to save for retirement but 46% said they wouldn’t be able to save enough to retire. If this is the case then how much will a person depend on other sources of income other than pension or registered retirement savings plans?

In the HRDC overview report “Challenges of an Aging Workforce” (2002), workers opting to work in later life after the age of 65 it is stated that paid work would account for 11% of expected retirement income. (“A Study of Investment Attitudes and Intensions for 2002”, Compass Inc.)

In Canada, HRDC declares that 46% of Boomers are close to retirement or pre-retirement years. If you are 54 in 2004 you are in the front end Boomer Zone, born 1946 to 1950. By 2015 you will be 65. Have you expanded your concept of career to mean your life’s journey or is retirement some sacred place after your pilgrimage through a series of jobs?

If you take an early retirement from organizational life, living a further decade or two may be a psychological challenge for you as you face the adjustment from that routine and the sense of purpose that full time working life brought to you.
Workers concerned about their bridge years to full retirement from work will need to focus on
their values and sense of purpose in this later life cycle much sooner than they may have been prone to do in a previous decade. Individuals currently aged 54 and up should consider looking at jarring their current situation at work by:

 adjusting their pace and patterns of work
 looking for assignments outside their normal roles
 developing other interests or learning opportunities outside the organization
 joining a professional association
 volunteering for an organization that stands for an issue or cause they care about

Note that these approaches listed above are not unique to any age group. Everyone needs to adapt to a reinvention process if we are to manage our transitions in a fast changing society.

In the back end Boomer Zone at 44, the likelihood is that with many more years of high demands and more frequent spikes of change and uncertainty in the workplace you will be more charged to evaluate and manage your career longevity. Career management now takes on new meaning in an integrated or portfolio approach to include:

 Simultaneous or sequential work relationships
 Contract or project based work
 Transfers of industry or profession
 Broader networks or alliances outside organizations
 Intergenerational teaching, coaching or mentoring
 Volunteer work, board advisory or sabbaticals
 Self employment

Watch this last option. The link between late life career options and self employment is significant and can be argued is a prerequisite, part of pre-retirement planning courses. Not everyone wants a part time service sector job, nor will it always satisfy what motivation or “buzz” factor that was present in a previous part of the career. And there are many unmet needs and opportunities in the market that people with business acumen can apply their knowledge and expertise to offer services to customers.

Whatever trends and social conditions that may emerge for an aging population, expect that any future career pattern will be unpredictable and interruptive and that work life expectancy may be longer than you think. But remember in the end, it’s not age but attitude that will shape who you become.

Re-working Retirement: the Quest for Career Longevity

The next 15 years it will be another coming of age for Boomers as the notion of “freedom 55” struggles with “too young to retire”. With this cohort, retirement is up for reinvention for as a society we are living longer and hopefully healthier lives. This will challenge Boomers to think often and earlier about later life career options with recurring questions.

What is my career plan that will span the years ahead? How do I evaluate and plan my health, wealth, relationships and personal purpose for today and tomorrow?

The desire or need to retire before or after that time marker of 65, will shift as the years go by, influenced by several factors from the state of your health and wealth, to how you view what you’re going to do with your time.

In Canada, HRDC declares that 46% of Boomers are close to retirement or pre-retirement years. If you are 54 in 2004 you are in the front end Boomer Zone, born 1946 to 1950. By 2015 you will be 65. Have you expanded your concept of career to mean your life’s journey or is retirement some sacred place after your pilgrimage through a series of jobs?

In the back end Boomer Zone at 44, the likelihood is that with many more years of high demands and more frequent spikes of change and uncertainty in the workplace you will be more charged to evaluate and manage your career longevity. Career management now takes on new meaning in an integrated or portfolio approach to include:

• Simultaneous or sequential work relationships
• Contract or project based work
• Transfers of industry or profession
• Broader networks or alliances outside organizations
• Intergenerational teaching, coaching or mentoring
• Volunteer work, board advisory or sabbaticals
• Self employment

Expect any future career pattern will be unpredictable and interruptive and that work life expectancy may be longer than you think. But remember in the end, it’s not age but attitude that will shape who you become.