Keep Boomers on the Job

Trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent. Yep, that’s us. At least those of us who are still Boy Scouts. But is this any reason to keep us on the job?

It doesn’t hurt to have a bunch of merit badges, but there are some other more compelling reasons for employers to hang on to their baby boomers as long as they can.

Let’s take the most obvious reasons first. Boomers have experience. We’ve been working at some of these jobs for 30 to 40 years. Not trying to be mean here, but the 21 year-old new hire does not have a clue about how to do the job a boomer can do.

Next, we’ve got leadership skills. We’ve worked our way up the ladder because we know how to direct and motivate people. We may not have been natural leaders but we learned how to grow into that role and make it our own.

Perspective? Check. We’ve seen a lot of change, ideas that came and went. It’s not that we’re going to stand in your way, but we can tell you what happened when we tried a new idea and it didn’t work. We’re open to new possibilities without going all in for the first idea that someone has proposed.

How about credibility? A boomer with 30 years or more of experience can talk to clients or customers with the kind of gravitas that younger employees only wish they had. A little gray hair can command respect as well as give off confidence.

Then there’s the fact that boomers have some serious interpersonal skills. We’re talking person to person, not text to text or email to email. Getting face to face to resolve a conflict, negotiate an agreement or persuade someone to try something new….boomers have had lots of time to perfect those skills in real time with real people.

Lastly, but almost more important than any other quality, boomers are adaptable. We may not know what social media platform is going red hot at the moment --- Snapchat, Vine, Instagram, whatever --- we have managed to learn about loads of apps and technologies just to keep up. So while you may not see us as early adopters we are definitely constant adapters.

All that and we can light a fire with 2 pieces of wood.

Jay Harrison is a graphic designer and writer whose work can be seen at DesignConcept and at BoomSpeak. He's written a mystery novel, which therefore makes him a pre-published author.

Worker Bees

My Sweet Irreplaceable You

Final score….73 to 48. That’s 73 million baby boomers and 48 million GenXers. If all the baby boomers left the labor market at the same time, the American economy could not sustain itself.

Wow! Makes you want to quit tomorrow if it weren’t for the negative consequences. But seriously, this is serious. It’s not a question of experience or competence, it’s just plain arithmetic. As large numbers of boomers leave the workforce, there are not enough employees to take their place.

Employers may have to reach down to the farm team level to tap Gen Yers (born between 1980 and 2000), but there’s a big concern about whether they are ready and whether their work culture will clash big time with the remaining boomers.

While boomers are typically obsessed with their work, Gen Yers generally seek a greater balance between work and life interests. Often characterized as high performance and high maintenance, they lack the experience of even Gen Xers. Bottom line, the Yers will have a tough time filling the shoes of the more seasoned baby boomers.

Experts are telling employers that the next 10 years could be a very rocky road if they are unable to hold onto the talent they already have. The successful businesses will find a way to keep employees engaged and committed to the company’s goals, but after years of downsizing and merger-acquisition frenzies, that’s easier said than done. Plus, the burgeoning start-ups are looking to poach the Gen Xer talent from more established businesses, making the remaining baby boomers even more valuable workers.

Articles about boomers staying on the job well past conventional retirement age are now a weekly staple. Just recently I read about an 81 year-old bartender and an 82 year-old waiter working at the same restaurant. They didn’t want to sit around at home and get fat and they liked coming to work, even if it was only part-time. Youthful workers at the other end of the spectrum just don’t see it that way, and if you think that’s not your problem, remember, we need them to cover our social security benefits.

In any case, I’m beginning to feel a little bit like Sally Field when she accepted her Oscar. “You like me. You really like me.”

Jay Harrison is a graphic designer and writer whose work can be seen at DesignConcept and at BoomSpeak. He's written a mystery novel, which therefore makes him a pre-published author.

Workplace Bullies?

Next time you hear someone complaining about bullying, it may not be a taunted ten-year old, but someone like yourself….over 50 and still working. That’s right, now it’s baby boomers who are fighting off the workplace bullies. If it was the last thing you ever thought would your co-workers would do to you, it can be quite a shock to be on the receiving end of some very mean spirited comments. Being called stupid, too old to keep up, or ready for the scrap heap by your fellow employees are all forms of workplace bullying and their occurrence is on the rise. Maybe it’s your boss hinting that you should be thinking about retirement, or a co-worker who thinks you’re not up to the task (and they might also want your job), or a client that thinks a younger employee would be a better fit. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is seeing an increase in claims for what they call age-based harassment, so the problem is real. What is it? According the Workplace Bullying Institute, it is repeated health-harming mistreatment of a target by one or more perpetrators, and it includes verbal abuse and offensive nonverbal conduct. Some of this bullying is almost sanctioned by the employer because they want to drive out the more experienced, higher-paid workers.A 2011 survey by CareerBuilder indicated that 29 percent of workers over age 55 say they have experienced bullying, while only 25 percent of workers 25-44 reported the same treatment. What do you do about it? Pretty much the same thing you do with any case of employment discrimination. Document the occurrences of who said what and when. Check to see if your company has internal policies regarding harassment that may have been violated. Consult an attorney if you’re not sure if you have a case. And unfortunately, brace yourself for retaliation or having to find a new job, because that’s often what happens to workers who report workplace bullies. But who said life was fair?

Jay Harrison is a graphic designer and writer whose work can be seen at DesignConcept and at BoomSpeak. He's written a mystery novel, which therefore makes him a pre-published author.

What Golden Years?

It’s tough enough that boomers need to keep working because of shrunken retirement funds, but even worse when we’re accused of preventing the next generation from assuming our jobs.

Edward P. Glaeser is a professor of economics at Harvard and the author of “Triumph of the City: How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier and Happier.” He wrote a piece for the New York Times titled Goodbye, Golden Years.

So when he says that it’s a myth that boomers are robbing younger workers of their chance to move up, we should listen.

Glaeser notes that boomers keep working because they believe they cannot afford to stop. About 40 percent of 55 to 64 year-olds do not have retirement accounts. Almost a quarter do not even own stocks or savings bonds. Their median net worth is now $254,000 (including housing), which is down from $273,000 just three years ago.

But Glaeser thinks that boomers remaining in the workplace may turn out to be a good thing for young workers, even if it sounds counterintuitive. Boomers may crowd out younger workers in some instances, but as older workers continue to earn wages, they buy more products produced by younger workers. Boomers will also continue to pay taxes that help our overall fiscal problems gold nestegg while they bring a diversity of perspective and experience to the workplace.

Glaeser’s hope is that older workers, who may be more inclined to be entrepreneurial, will start new businesses. Statistically, the older you are, the more likely you are to become self-employed. And that self-employment in turn can generate jobs and taxes.

Maybe the whole idea of retirement at 62 or 65 was a mid-century aberration. It was not always a foregone conclusion that workers would throw in the towel as soon as they hit the magic number.

If boomers find fulfilling work or self-employment well into their 70s, they just might find that the golden years are golden after all. Or at the very least, a little more time to earn some green.

Jay Harrison is a graphic designer and writer whose work can be seen at DesignConcept and at BoomSpeak. He's written a mystery novel, which therefore makes him a pre-published author.

Brain Drain

Guess what? For all the bad mouthing of baby boomers, business and industry need to know what’s in our brains. That’s right, they need us, they really need us.

Er, they need what’s in our brains. Recent articles in business magazines point to a knowledge vacuum as a serious consequence of the exit of baby boomers. Around 900,000 white color workers will be retiring from the executive branch of government. While the make up 40% of the total workforce, boomers fill more than half the management positions and half the professionals such as doctors and lawyers. One article in Business Week went so far as to list 8 steps companies can take to deal with this intelligence attrition.

So, how do they mine our brains to extract our valuable knowledge? They need us to share the rules of engagement. Boomers are documenting their rationales for client/customer relations so that the next generation can pick it up. Creating a database to establish where the most valuable competencies reside in the organization is another step, and creating a database to collect valuable information goes along with it. It’s also recommended that organizations create a home for the esoteric information that may seem non-essential (until the day comes when you need it). Bridge building between generations may seem obvious, but a lot of companies ignore it at their peril. Some of the best information exchanges occur when boomers are working as a team with the next generation of managers. Social media is another way to get information exchanged, allowing retirees to participate as well in the mining of useful knowledge.

Taking these steps is not just a one time fix for business and industry, but a strategy for the future in which each generation hands off what they know to the next.

Successful businesses will be proactive enough in this effort to guarantee the succession of knowledgeable leadership. Boomers are by no means irreplacable, but companies that don’t mine our skills and competencies will be whistling into the wind when we’re gone. Just try wetting your lips to do that.

Jay Harrison is a graphic designer and writer whose work can be seen at DesignConcept and at BoomSpeak. He's written a mystery novel, which therefore makes him a pre-published author.