July 2008 Newsletter

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We are often asked how we find the right people for our clients. There is no simple answer. But, our first step involves looking at our client's team and making sure they have a good plan in place to retain their valuable people, including baby boomers thinking about retirement.

The focus of this month's article is baby boomers who are considering leaving the work force. But guess what? They're finding they can't leave. The boomer dilemma opens a golden opportunity for organizations concerned about losing some of their best talent. A retention plan is sometimes the best recruiting plan.

Warmly,

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Boomers are a valuable workforce segment with a desire to work. They are the best educated and most skilled workforce in U.S. history. Employment pioneers already realize that the "new retirement" is here. Don't wait until key people shortages hit your bottom line to act. Be proactive and become one of the first to stop seeing older workers as a risk and start viewing them as a competitive advantage.

The boomer brain drain threatens to ripple through our economy. The Federal Reserve recently suggested to Congress that the nation's overall economic growth may actually slow because of the surge in boomer retirements. Labor analysts predict the U.S. economy will face shortages of 6 million workers by 2012 and 35 million workers by 2030 [1]. You can stay way ahead of the pack by taking steps to bridge that gap now.

Lucky for employers, close to 80 percent of boomers plan to work in some capacity well past the normal retirement age. What are your boomer recruitment and retention strategies? They should begin with an analysis of your assumptions about the mature workforce, followed by a strategic assessment of boomers in your company and a specific plan to attract and retain them. Boomer fallacies and attributes The 2006 New Retirement Study, by Merrill Lynch, found that by choice or necessity most boomers expect to work at least part time until age 70 or after. Attorneys who retire from 80-hour work weeks to sell fishing rods part time and corporate CEOs who become social entrepreneurs are not unusual these days.

Boomers want to stay active and stimulated, and many want to give something back to society. Smart companies will make an effort to attract these people, and the first step is often getting beyond assumptions and prejudices like these, that boomers are:

Companies need to think more about what boomers offer than what they may not offer. Typical boomer characteristics include:

Questions that inform strategy

Before you come up with strategies, you have to have the answers to questions like these:

Boomer retention strategies

Wages and health benefits are the two main reasons boomers continue to work into traditional retirement years. Additionally, many boomers find that they want or need the challenge and stimulation offered by a work environment, but with less stress. Employers, on the other hand, have a growing need for the knowledge and skills of older workers. With creative retention strategies, you can create a winning situation for both boomers and your organization.

Retention strategies can include:

The best way to determine which of these and other strategies works best for boomers and your organization is to establish a change committee that includes boomers.

Become an early adopter of the "new retirement"

We've all heard the tiresome statistics on how the majority of companies haven't thought much about the fact that Generation X is only three-fourths the size of the boomer generation...which means there will be a smaller pool of workers for you to draw from...and on and on. The reality is that most boomers won't be able to retire, or don't want to. Become an early adopter of the "new retirement" and find a way to bridge the gap in a more meaningful way than your competitors.

[1]http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/classifieds/news/jobcenter/news/stories/DN-olderworkers_01bus.ART0.State.Edition1.211172.html

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A Review of TalenTrust Services

Strategic Consultation - to determine your most critical needs and help you plan your recruitment process to maximize your growth objectives.

Outsourced Recruitment - For organizations with ongoing hiring needs, we operate as your in-house recruiting department. We can take on the recruitment and hiring process for your entire company or for one division. (More about this in the article below.)

Engaged Search - We conduct searches for executive and managerial leaders in all aspects of your business. We specialize in sales, human resources, staffing and building executive leadership and high performance sales teams.

On-Demand Recruiting - Sometimes your internal recruiting team needs added muscle to recruit for a large project or to staff for a new division. Our clients can hire TalenTrust on an hourly basis for projects such as candidate generation, project recruiting, campus recruiting, or to provide a pipeline of candidates in a certain field.

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