Baby Boomers and the 21st-Century Talent Shortage
- Author: Amitai Givertz
- Posted: May 17, 2007
- Category: That's Life, Miscellaneous, Employee Retention
- Tags: Employee Retention, Recruiting, Workforce Planning
- Comments:
In an article that appeared recently in Talent Management magazine Stephanie Klein asks what these people have in common:
Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, President Bill Clinton, Katie Couric, Johnny Depp, Tom Hanks, Apple CEO Steve Jobs, Michael Jordan, Madonna, Brad Pitt, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Steven Spielberg, Jon Stewart, Donald Trump, Denzel Washington and Oprah Winfrey.
The answer? Well, this “diverse group of entrepreneurs, politicians and entertainers” are all high performers and for another, they’re all baby boomers. As the basis for a piece that suggests employers couldn’t do better than to recruit and retain knowledgeable, experienced, motivated boomers.
I cannot fault the logic of her argument. Can you? After all, a lot of people aged between 42 and 60 have a work ethic American business is banking on. Boomers too.
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Comments (3)
Comment by Arthur Runno, May 21, 2007 at 6:45 am
I’d have to agree with the article. On a broader note, I would add that employers should seek talented individuals whatever their demographic. Too often positions go unfilled because the realities of the availabie (qualified) talent pool conflicts with the idealized vision of the human resources department.
Comment by Mike O'Horo, June 8, 2007 at 3:21 pm
I’ll argue that one of the barriers to solution is middle management’s need for control, which too often is manifest as a “Mom & the kids” environment. That’s where management insists on defining how workers accomplish their jobs, instead of defining the desired outcome and getting the hell out of the way. Rapid change means that those closest to that change must be free to apply their judgment to which solution options to choose.
The idea of defining the outcome, aligning jobs with workers’ skills, aptitudes and interests, and letting those workers perform (and accepting their inevitable mistakes) is not new. Popularized in such books as Collins’ “Good to Great,” and “First Break All the Rules” from the Gallup Organization, this approach shrinks the companies’ management, motivation and training needs and, along with that, many of the supervisory jobs that too often are chartered with checking off boxes about workers’ compliance with process requirements.
For a real-world illustration of this in action, read Joe Phelps’ book, “Pyramids Are Tombs,” about how his L.A.-based marketing/adv shop is 100% operated by self-governing, self-directed teams.
Comment by Amitai Givertz, June 10, 2007 at 5:26 pm
Mike, thanks for the interesting comment and for sharing your point of view.
I agree with you up to the point that at some point everyone in the organization — middle management whatever that really means included — must have their performance measured against corporate objectives that have been agreed and adopted by all and not just against those elements of personal performance that may or may not be enhanced by the worker themselves being ‘empowered’ for the sole purpose of keeping them around.
I hope that makes sense, does it? Or perhaps I’m missing your point. Is your real issue with who has the power? If a controlling middle management is your metaphor for political and/or bureaucratic power not serving the interests of self-direction and creativity then I can see how that could be a problem in retaining anyone, maybe Gen Xer’s and Millennials more so than Boomers who may “need the job” because of their economic situation does not afford them the luxury of being “so principled.”