What Shortage?

Haven’t they run out of baby boomers in the workplace yet? I keep reading articles about how thousands of boomers are leaving their jobs and there will be severe shortages of knowledgeable workers to carry on the business of business when those folks retire.

Only I’m not seeing it. Looks like plenty of gray hairs (eminence grisers as I like to call them) are still on the job, still standing in the way of GenXers and Millennials waiting to take their jobs. With the promise of 10,000 retirees per day, I thought we were going to see a dramatic denigration in the quality of worker output. Is it possible that worker output already sucks because everyone is shopping online for half the workday?

Admit it. If you’re a boomer, there’s a part of your psyche that wants to see the entire economy come screeching to a halt as the boomers take their leave. They need us, they really, really need us. Or maybe they don’t. Maybe we’ve done such a great job training our replacements that the transition to the next generation will proceed in a calm and orderly way.

One fly in the ointment. There are not enough replacements. Boomers are such a big cohort that only the milennials can match us for sheer numbers. Unless you think we can throw a twenty year-old into the breech to replace the sixty-five year-old worker, we’re all kind of screwed. And that means you too boomers. What kind of service do you think we’re going to get down at the doctor’s office, the motor vehicle department or the social security office if these places are all run by kids that just got out of college?

Stop shaking, it’s going to be okay. Everything will be computerized. We will just complete the forms on the website and then robots will process our request. If the robot screws up, you just complete the form again until the robot gets it right. Sure, it could take three or four tries before you get what you need, but we’ll have time. We’ll be retired and there won’t be any rush to get anything done or go anywhere.

Feel better? I know I do.

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.

Cloak of Invisibility

Get ready to be ignored. That’s right, the older you are (i.e. the more gray hair and wrinkles), the more likely you are to become invisible in the near future. Whether it’s a bank, a store, a pharmacy or a doctor’s office, if you are accompanied by a younger person, you will notice that the doctor, clerk or pharmacist will ignore you in order to talk to your “minder.”

As Nancy Perry Graham, editor in chief of AARP Magazine, explains it, “Older people are invisible in society after a certain point. It’s one of the last remaining acceptable prejudices.”

I get that some older individuals may have hearing problems or Alzheimer’s disease, but we’re talking about perfectly healthy, normal functioning adults. If you arrive somewhere with a son, daughter or younger companion, you will observe that you are bypassed as the conversation is directed toward the younger person. Part of the problem is purely observational. A clerk greeting an older person accompanied by a younger person automatically assumes the older adult requires assistance. Maybe they needed someone to drive them to the store, but it does not necessarily mean they are incapable of understanding how to purchase a laptop computer.

It’s one thing if we’re talking about you taking your invisible man85 year-old mother to the doctor, but it’s going to be a whole different matter when it’s baby boomers that are getting the cold shoulder. Imagine a tsunami of baby boomers, who are not about to be patronized, descending on malls, DMVs, and medical offices. They are going to behave as though they are entitled to have you speak directly to them, not some intermediary. Maybe the greatest generation is okay or accepting with someone else doing the speaking and the listening for them, but it’s hard to imagine boomers letting go that easy.

What I envision instead is a major retraining and sensitization effort on the part of any business or organization that deals with the public. With a large cohort of 60 plus customers/clients making it clear they want to be heard (and seen), management is going to want to make sure that they maintain/earn our patronage. Or pay the price when we vote with our feet and support businesses that get it.

Whatever happens, like much else associated with baby boomers, it’s going to be interesting to see how society decides to deal with us.

Let the games begin.

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.

The Gray Ceiling

Isn’t great that at least once a month someone comes up with a new baby boomer phenomenon with a clever name?

Now it appears that because boomers won’t get out of the workplace fast enough, they are forcing Gen Xers to hit their heads on the Gray Ceiling.

By the year 2016, one quarter of all U.S. workers will be age 55 or over. Are we working longer because we want to? Maybe a small percentage find their work that rewarding, but I would guess many would be happy to blow off work today if they felt monetarily secure enough to retire.

A Pew Research Center report indicates that 63 percent of workers age 50 to 61 will stay on the job past their planned retirement age because of the current state of the economy. Given that we are looking at a long slow recovery, the joke that we are going to die at our desks does not seem far from the truth.

For employers, the gray ceiling means they have to get their boomer employees to share some of the knowledge they currently use as leverage to stay on the job, without giving the sense they are going to be pushed out to make room for the Xers.

It doesn’t help that boomers are comfortable with a seniority system while Generation X is more inclined to want to be rewarded for their contributions rather than time served.

Companies that want to negotiate this intergenerational gray balding mandivide are replacing the career ladder with a career lattice. Generation X is moving laterally in the organization rather than always assuming they need to move up. Boomers can be mentors in this process as they also learn to play a different role than in the past. Another way to make room for the next generation is to move to part-time or consultant roles where boomers can still share their knowledge and experience while the Xer learns to take the reins.

I’ve always felt that “gray matter” can be useful to any organization. There is a lot to be said for knowing where the bodies are buried, what’s been tried before, and just as importantly, what might be worth trying again. If Xers and boomers can powershare effectively, not only do the generations win, so does the organization.

Viva la eminence gris!

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.