Don't die Woodstock! On the other hand, good riddance to bad rubbish!
And don't let the casket lid hit you on the way out.
Posted on 04/23/2006 11:43:48 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
Just as they have for 60 years, baby boomers are throwing their weight around again.
This time, though, it's not a matter of how to educate, house and employ the mass of 78 million Americans in that generation, but rather how to replace their skills and knowledge in the workplace as they begin to retire.
The oldest of the baby boomers turn 60 this year, on the verge of traditional retirement age.
The percentage of workers older than 65 will increase from 14.4 percent of the work force in 2004 to 19.7 percent by 2014, meaning the fastest-growing part of the U.S. work force will be retirement age, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Yet few companies welcome older workers.
It's more common to find businesses offering early retirement to shuttle older workers out the door, relieving themselves of expensive salary and benefit packages. And little is being done to offer workplace adjustments that would entice employees to work longer.
“The baby boomers are going to be leaving the workplace soon, and they are going to take all their knowledge with them,” said Sandra Timmerman, a gerontologist who heads MetLife's Mature Market Institute. “If you ignore that, you're going to make the problem worse than it has to be.”
Despite that, the U.S. workplace is anything but hospitable to most older workers.
“America is enamored with youth, and a lot of businesses don't look favorably on older workers,” said Miriam Rothman, a professor of management at the University of San Diego. “Most employers want to hire young people, fresh people. They don't want to deal with older people. But they are going to find very soon that they need these older workers.”
A Federal Reserve study to be released in July warns that retirements by baby boomers may have a profound impact on the nation's economic growth, perhaps slowing it dramatically because there aren't enough workers to fill key jobs.
The Fed study projects that annual economic growth over the next decade will fall to less than 3 percent annually, down from 3.3 percent annual gains through the 1990s.
A survey by the Society for Human Resources Management shows that two-thirds of companies think they will lose talent when baby boomers retire, although there is little evidence that companies are doing much to try to keep them working.
“It's a little like the chicken and the egg,” said MetLife's Timmerman. “Companies seem to acknowledge the problem, but everyone is standing around waiting for someone else to find a solution. It's a little frustrating because that means we may have a crisis before most companies do anything about it.”
The issue has not gone unnoticed in some quarters.
Last fall, IBM organized a discussion of community leaders, business people and academics at the University of San Diego to discuss how the aging work force will affect the workplace in the years ahead.
It was one of several that IBM has held around the county to call attention to the impending loss of institutional knowledge, said Eric Lesser, leader of IBM's West Coast human capital management group.
“We know that there are a lot of older workers who will be leaving in the next few years, but we wanted to make sure that we didn't lose their expertise and knowledge,” Lesser said. “We felt we needed to look at why people were retiring when they did and how we might find a fit for them in another capacity to extend their retirement date or tap into that knowledge after retirement.”
IBM, which maintains a stable of retirees who mentor and pass on knowledge to younger workers, also has a consulting service to help companies assess how they will be affected by baby boomer retirements. “This will have severe consequences for some companies unless they prepare for it,” Lesser said.
Last fall, IBM also introduced a program to help shore up the shortage of science and math teachers by providing up to $15,000 in tuition and stipends to some of its most experienced workers who want to transition into teaching.
IBM employees who've worked for the company for at least 10 years are eligible to study for the new career while still on IBM's payroll. They then leave the company to become math or science teachers.
“We have a lot of people who have always wanted to teach, and this is an opportunity to do that,” said IBM's Robin Wilner.
One unknown is how many baby boomers will postpone retirement beyond the traditional age of 65.
Older people are driven today to extend their working lives by a variety of factors: economic uncertainties, poor retirement planning, collapsing pension plans and longer life spans.
MetLife, for example, reports that 54 percent of baby boomers are concerned they will have to work either part time or full time after age 65 to have a comfortable retirement.
“I think there are a lot of workers who are getting older who want to continue working, but not necessarily in the same careers,” USD's Rothman said. “These baby boomers want to stay involved, and work is one of the ways they will do that.”
But as Timmerman points out, employers will be motivated to find ways to keep employees longer only when they witness firsthand the shrinking pool of experienced talent.
San Diego-based Sharp HealthCare, for instance, got its indoctrination under fire.
A nationwide shortage of nurses has caused the health care company to look at how it could accommodate nurses rather than seeing them bolt the company or the profession, said senior recruiter Joyce Stewart.
“The bulk of the health care work force is in nursing, and everyone knows there is a shortage of nurses,” Stewart said, noting that the average age of a Sharp nurse is now 45. “So we began to look at ways we could make the job more attractive and keep people from leaving.”
Sharp instituted an in-house registry for nurses, clerical help, information technology workers and others in its 13,0000-employee work force. Many Sharp employees can shape their own work schedules in medical clinics, labs and hospitals around the county.
Instead of forcing workers into highly structured jobs, the registry allows them to work fewer than 40 hours a week if they want, and to bid on work schedules they find most compatible with their lifestyles and personal needs.
“If they only want to work four shifts a month, we'll do that,” Stewart said.
Sharp also found that one of the primary workplace complaints of older nurses is the physical nature of the work. Stewart said Sharp has investigated ways to reduce those demands to prevent nurses from leaving.
“These are valuable employees to us, and anything we can do shape the job around their needs will help keep them from leaving,” she said. “We know that we can't solve everyone's concerns, but we are looking at ways we can change to make our jobs more attractive and retain these individuals.”
Another company that recognized the shortfall of experienced workers in the labor pool is Home Depot, which formed a partnership with AARP to hire workers 50 and older for some of the 35,000 annual openings at the home-improvement chain.
Home Depot allows workers wide latitude in setting work hours and has trained managers on dealing with older employees.
One of those workers is Walter Spain, a Sabre Springs resident who first retired as a contract administrator from Rockwell International in 1991 at the age of 67. After a brief retirement, Spain worked for a decade at a Poway hardware store until it closed last year.
Now 82, Spain is working in the hardware department at the Home Depot store in Carmel Mountain Ranch. He works 24 to 32 hours a week, or as many hours as he wants.
“Companies are scared to death to hire old people,” he said. “It's like they expect you to fall over dead on the spot. The truth is that a lot of us want to work and enjoy it. I'm thankful I found somewhere that will welcome me.”
But most companies don't seem to feel the need to change how they handle aging workers – at least not yet.
Cubic Corp., a San Diego defense contractor and maker of automatic fare collection systems for mass transit, has no formal mentoring program, nor does it worry about a shrinking labor pool even though the average age of its work force is about 48, said Bernie Kulchin, Cubic's vice president of human resources.
“We believe that there is no substitute for experience,” he said. “We have always coached, counseled and guided younger workers, but we've never had a formal program.”
Like other companies – particularly technology and firms with specialized personnel – Cubic often brings back retired workers to work on short-term projects because of their expertise.
MetLife's Timmerman said a major obstacle to keeping older workers on the job is the reluctance of companies to invest in training them for new tasks.
“As a person gets older, most employers don't want to train them,” she said. “Of course they don't say that, but there is a powerful message that is sent to older workers that they aren't worth the investment.
“I think that's a mistake,” Timmerman said. “We need to realize that training will keep these people in the work force doing work we need done.”
USD management professor Rothman said companies and older workers need to change their attitudes about older workers.
“Competence has nothing to do with age,” she said. “But we seem to have built this barrier that once you cross it, your work life is done. That's wrong. But I really think it is going to take a crisis, such as a labor shortage, for it to sink in that there are workers there who can do the job.”
None of the people you list is a Boomer. None. They are either from the pre-boomer (Korean War) or the "Greatest Generation."
Don't die Woodstock! On the other hand, good riddance to bad rubbish!
And don't let the casket lid hit you on the way out.
As a baby boomer (aged 50), I couldn't agree with you more.
Later liberal boomers took advantage of it, of course, but the dumbing down was started by those of an earlier generation.
I do not expect the Boomer Generation to go gently in to that good night. They may not just "move aside" when their time comes, the retirement of the prior generations is probably not for them.
For good and ill, the Boomers will continue to make their mark on society.
True, I'm a 1950 baby and I remember that it was those born in the late 1930s and early 1940s that were the first true hippies and such (think; The Beatles, all born in the early 1940s).
Don't forget Clinton. He had rug burns as bad as JFK's rice shrapnel.
Hey, know a good sub for 6F6? ;)
...And none of this is true about them either, right?
"Older people are driven today to extend their working lives by a variety of factors: economic uncertainties, poor retirement planning, collapsing pension plans and longer life spans.
MetLife, for example, reports that 54 percent of baby boomers are concerned they will have to work either part time or full time after age 65 to have a comfortable retirement.
“I think there are a lot of workers who are getting older who want to continue working, but not necessarily in the same careers,” USD's Rothman said. “These baby boomers want to stay involved, and work is one of the ways they will do that.”
But as Timmerman points out, employers will be motivated to find ways to keep employees longer only when they witness firsthand the shrinking pool of experienced talent. "
In some ways, the "boomers" are actually the victims of a horribly effective government/media/academic/corporate/castro/et al. brainwashing campaign. Social research has been in high gear since the 1920's, at least. Without doubt they were/are a very studied demographic and an important one due to the relative size. Socialist scientists are a patient lot, at least. "Make Love, Not War"
That's what I meant by transfer of wealth; I wasn't implying it was money the boomers didn't earn. Of course they earned it. And it could go either way with the market.
No, you are right. As I think back on that time, people like the recently deceased Reverend William Sloan Coffin were adults, and it was some of those older people who joined the youth movement and helped corrupt it.
It didn't happen in the 50s, I wouldn't say, but when it did happen it was helped along by older folks like Timothy Leary, Alfred Kinsey, and Norman O. Brown in academia. Curiously, I was just thinking about that this morning. Older people supported their students' misbehavior on campus, published books to help further corrupt the movement, and contributed to making it what it was. The word then was "Trust no one over 30," but in fact they did trust a few chosen advisers.
Chief Justice William Brennan was the guy who thought up Roe v. Wade, and he was already a fairly old man when that happened. So it was a coalition of starry eyed rebellious youths and older trouble makers who should have known better.
I've always thought that the one thing the Boomers would be unable to overwhelm by sheer force of numbers and self-esteem is the moment of death and judgment. Otherwise, they have been pretty good and bending reality itself.
"If you read the newspapers, they're throwing out waves of boomers and pre-boomers while there is no young voice. They have an unlimited supply of Helen Thomases, Dan Rathers, even Walter Cronkites, Jimmy Carters, Jesse Jacksons, Larry Kings, etc., while there are no young fresh voices. It's as though they're trying to preserve the consciousness of the '60s as the perpetual culture."
This is a great example of how effective the media is with many Americans.
You just named some of the best examples of the leadership that is responsible for America's problems.
Not a one of them is a boomer, now keep working on the list of leaders from the 50s 60s 70s and 80s and you'll see much the same. (real leaders,not college activists or guitar players, or young actresses, although, even Jane Fonda isn't a boomer)
Years after the 60s, the Vietnam war, Roe vs Wade,"the Great Society", Camelot, after all that, in 1980 Ronald Reagan was elected, the boomers ranged in age in 1980 from 34 to 16.
If people want to trace the roots of homelessness for example, look to 1963, when the oldest boomer in existence was 17.
"Exercising misguided intentions, President Kennedy signed the Community Mental Health Centers Act in 1963. His stated purpose was to integrate institutionalized individuals back into the population. From that day until 1980 when the law expired, the population in the nation's mental health institutions dropped by 70%. With inadequate numbers of community mental health centers, psychiatrists, and therapists to help the newly released mentally ill individuals integrate into the community, many of them wound up living on the street or in prisons."
"Social research has been in high gear since the 1920's, at least"
And in the 40s during and after the War, the left grabbed hold of all of our institutions.
The boomers were the first large group to start fighting back against the left, and they will be the most conservative in the future as well.
The company wants to burry their head in the sand but that's OK, I'll have my 401K and my lump-sum pension to keep me warm. {;o)~
And without all the knowledge we will lose when all these baby boomer middle managers (what exactly they manage is beyond me, but I'm suuurrre it's important) retire....
And who can deny we won't all suffer when there are fewer Human Resources personal, corporate motivational speakers and diversity trainers..
How in the world are American businesses going to compete in the world with out all of those people
But the point is moot, because without the large number of baby boomer nannies out there, passing laws like banning smoking in bars and requiring helmets while riding a bicycle and doing such enlightening studies like how eating too many french fries can cause health problems, none of us are going to be able to take care of ourselves and were all going to die anyhow.
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