Ceilidh

Michael Zey
futurist3000@aol.com

Friday, August 26, 2005

BY MICHAEL G. ZEY
Born from 1946 to 1964, the 78 million members of the Baby Boom generation have made their presence felt at every stage of their lives. They crowded our kindergartens and grade schools in the 1950s and 1960s, overwhelmed college dorms and classrooms throughout the 1960s and 1970s and then supplied American businesses with the largest and most educated group of employees in U.S. history.

Now the Boomers might rock our society once again, this time not by their presence but by their absence. Over the next several years, Boomers will be reaching retirement age.

The potential mass exodus of the Boomers looms just as U.S. employers are starting to have a harder time finding employees -- the jobless rate hit a four-year low of 5 percent and the American economy is adding more than 2 million jobs a year. The Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts that there could be as many as 5 million to 6 million more jobs than available workers by 2008, 7 million to 10 million more jobs by 2010.

If the Boomers walk out the door, they will take with them not just their numbers but their unparalleled skills, years of experience and training, plus a work ethic so strong that we had to invent terms like "workaholic" and "yuppie" to describe it.

Simply put, U.S. businesses that wish to remain competitive must find a way to retain as many of these employees as possible. And they must do so in an era in which most workers over 65, about 85 percent at last count, are choosing not to work, even part time.
Why are so many people choosing to retire? The most obvious reason is because they can. Social Security benefits, company pensions often accompanied by lifetime health benefits and supplemented by Medicare, as well as the 401(k)s that now total a staggering $1.8 trillion waiting to be claimed and spent, are all making it easier for people to retire.

Add to this mix the lure of a very attractive post-work lifestyle. This 21st-century "golden age of retirement" offers seniors fun-filled round-the-world cruises and "active adult communities" featuring year-round golf, tennis and other sports. I recently visited one of these "never-never lands," Callawassie Island off the South Carolina coast. Peter Pan never had it so good.

Plus, Boomers are more likely to see retirement as a normal lifestyle choice as they see their friends, siblings, spouses and co-workers deciding to pursue the post-work good life.
Another factor pushing employees to retire is their dissatisfaction with their jobs and their companies in today's "lean and mean" corporate climate. According to Gallup surveys, worker morale has never been so low.

Many companies might imagine that they can replace the departing Boomers with foreign workers. But don't count on it, at least according to Janemarie Mulvey, chief economist of the Washington-based Employment Policy Foundation. She says that due to imminent Boomer retirements, "We've got a looming labor shortage, and I don't think we can get enough labor overseas." In India, supposedly awash with enough technology and science professionals to replace defecting Boomers, only 6 percent of those 18 to 24 even enroll in college.

To persuade as many Boomers as possible to remain in the work force, American companies could start by emulating Japanese companies, which are facing worker shortages caused by Japan's rapidly aging population and plummeting birth rates. Those companies encourage older workers to stay by offering them bonuses and flexible time schedules.


Chances are American employers will have to be more creative and proactive to stem Boomer defections. Companies should send clear signals to their older workers that they are part of the organizations' future plans. For beginners, strike the terms "retirement" as well as "early retirement" from the corporate vocabulary. And include older workers in their training programs -- surprisingly, recent surveys show that workers 55 and over are receiving only one-third the training hours that those 45 to 54 are receiving. Business Week reported that several companies, such as Con Edison and United Technologies, make training and education available to older workers to increase retention.

Employers also can adapt a technique that universities have traditionally used to retain and refresh employees -- sabbaticals. Employers should offer employees, especially those nearing retirement, the option of taking a "job hiatus" of a few months to a year. Many companies experimented with such sabbaticals during the booming late 1990s, and even today Doubleday, Nike and Intel offer such an option. Such a hiatus could include paid time off, with a commitment by the employee to return after the year.

The oldest Boomers will be eligible to collect Social Security benefits in little more than two years. Companies would be wise to develop strategies to keep their Boomer employees now before these workers are walking out the door.

Michael G. Zey is a professor at Montclair State University's School of Business. He has written two books, 'The Future Factor" (McGraw- Hill/Transaction) and "Seizing the Future" (Simon and Schuster), and is working on another, "Ageless Society" (New Horizons/Kensington). He may be reached at futurist3000@aol.com.