Keeping Boomers Engaged with a Great Place to Work

Your employees could be smiling--and producing--more, and it doesn't have anything to do with Six Sigma or Lean Management. According to San Francisco-based Great Place To Work Institute, Inc., the happiest workforces are also some of the most successful. Speaking at the Human Resources Forum, aboard The Norwegian Dawn last week, Jennifer Robin, Ph.D., consultant for the institute, and her colleague, business development manager Meghan Johle, offered "Great Workplace" pointers:

· The best workplaces are supported by: a strong commitment from the CEO and senior management to preserve the corporate culture; a genuine belief that workers are indispensable to the success of the business; active community forums between employees and managers; and the perception of a "special and unique culture."

· At these "Great Places," everybody knows his or her responsibility and acts on it.

· If greatness still eludes you, start by focusing on what you already do well for your employees, and do more of it. If your CEO needs to be convinced to be part of the effort, figure out what he or she most likes to do. If he or she is a people person who likes to interact, explain how the plan will include regular live forums with workers.

· Show your CEO how a great office links up with profit, customer experience, and adding to the bottom line, but also point out that the advantages of a happy work environment are incalculable. "Numbers are one thing, but they are not what moves people," Robin says of making your case to management. "It's the emotion of the fundamental belief in a better way."

If we're going to keep Baby Boomers employed we need to create great places to work.

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Training for Baby Boomers in Senior Management

Senior management is the least likely, of all corporate staff levels, to receive training and development, according to a survey of 2,000 human resources and training and development executives by Boston-based Novations Group. Ninety percent of first-line managers will receive training this year, but only 59 percent of senior executives will.

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Helping Companies Transition to Employee Retirement

Findings released last week by The Ken Blanchard Companies annual Corporate Issues Survey cite increased competition and escalating challenges in attracting and retaining talent as the leading organizational concern in 2007. Top employee development challenges for the year include developing managerial and supervisory skills, building customer relationship skills, and executive development.

As Baby Boomers are retiring they may want to help train new managers for their jobs.

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Older Workers Are the Next Retention Challenge

In five years, nearly 20 percent of the total US work force will be age 55 or older, up from just under 13 percent in 2000, according to forecasts from AARP.

Many older people, some already retired, want to go back into the labor pool and do jobs that are different from what they did in their earlier careers. The AARP survey found that 69 percent of people between the ages of 45 and 74 who are either working or looking for work plan to work in some capacity during their retirement. Also, 68 percent of workers between the ages of 50 and 70 who have not yet retired reported that they plan to work in some capacity into their retirement years or never retire.

Finding our true passion and pursuing it sounds like it may be possible in retirement.

Read the article: www.projo.com/business/content/JK0415_04-15-07_OF57899.31f5614.html

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