Young professionals smile at the thought of opportunities likely to open up for them as a wide swath of the workforce retires in the next decade. Conventional wisdom says companies will be hard-hit as the baby boomer generation vacates key management positions to spend more time on the fairway, but a new book by management consultant William Byham, 70: The New 50, says firms can avoid such a loss. In a recent BusinessWeek article, Marshall Goldsmith asked Byham pointblank what he thinks of the conventional wisdom on baby boomer retirement:
Marshall Goldsmith: Many writers are saying that the retirement of baby boomers will cause skilled labor shortages in the U.S. Do you agree?
William Byham: Not necessarily. Companies can manage retirements rather than letting retirements manage them. They can be proactive in determining which older workers they want to keep and then take appropriate action, such as redesigning jobs and changing work hours, to make it attractive to people to stay longer. If they do manage retirements, companies can avoid the pitfalls that people have been projecting from the retirement of baby boomers (e.g., labor shortages in key jobs and loss of knowledge and contacts from organizations).
In other words, you can mitigate the loss of knowledge and network associated with the experienced players in your organization. The key is taking a proactive approach in developing a plan to extend their careers in a flexible way and eventually transfer their knowledge and contacts to promising new employees.
