A recent survey by World at Work revealed that under one third of companies are preparing for the upcoming baby boomer brain drain. Within the next ten years most baby boomers will be eligible for retirement, but before they leave, organizations will be forced to hire and train new workers. When a company puts together a job sharing and training program that brings together mentors and protégés and uses employee awards to motivate employees, the brain drain effect may be reduced or even eliminated.
However, there is a key timeframe that these mentoring award programs must be put in place. I found an article the other day entitled Incentives That Might Persuade Older Workers to Delay Their Decision to Retire. This informative article reported, “Nearly two-thirds of retirees (63%) report that these offers [employee awards] would have been a lot more effective if the retirees had known about them in the two years before they communicated their intention to retire.” This means that companies have time to delay the inevitable retirement of highly skilled and knowledgeable baby boomers and that they can use this time to put in place a mentoring program for the transfer of knowledge from the baby boomers generation to generations X & Y.
The key to enticing older workers to stay on the job longer has to be more than just a cash incentive. Baby boomers have the power to negotiate the terms of their stay and a study by World at Work cited a few reasons that a person would stay at a company longer than expected. Positive work environments, flexible/ part-time work schedules, employee award programs, one-on-one training opportunities and new training or improved opportunities for baby boomer employees are all important factors to consider when making the decision to definitely stay or retire.
When a mentoring program is coupled with a well designed and properly implemented employee award program, workers will feel more motivated and productive and will reach the goals of the mentoring program much faster. If a mentoring award program is put in place for at least two years, a company has an opportunity to couple new workers with its seasoned ones. This helps to prepare an organization for the large scale departure of its baby boomer employees that will occur during the next ten years in the United States.
Many baby boomers retire only to find a part-time position and/or a volunteer position immediately after. Estimates are between five and eight million Americans have already launched encore careers. What do these positions offer that their previous employers did not offer? The same research found that of the people in encore careers, “84% reported a high level of satisfaction and 94% said they see the positive results of their work and know they are making a difference.”
What is your organization doing to ensure it avoids the baby boomer brain drain? The fact is that only 29% have a knowledge management plan in place to ensure when baby boomers depart they are not affected by the brain drain. Mentoring award programs are a simple, proven method to help facilitate an easier turnover of your workforce.
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