The Changing Face of Your Workforce

As older, Baby Boomer workers begin to retire in the next 3-5 years, they will take with them a wealth of organisational and business knowledge. They will take with them the relationships that they have built up over a lifetime and the experience to understand how best, and when to activate those relationships in pursuit of business. At the same time, the Generation Y workforce will wash through your business, bringing with them a profoundly different approach to work.

The challenge will be to manage this transition and to find ways of accelerating the transfer of knowledge and skills from one group to another. Interestingly, I expect that this transfer will not just be one-way. In a post entitled Enterprise 2.0: It’s Not Your Dad’s Company, I explain that this transition has already commenced:

Those peppy Gen Y kids who were brought into the business to inject some life and energy are moving up. That’s right, they have been steadily building their experience, lobbying the line management and pushing through the KPIs in the yearly 360 degree reviews … and guess what? They are now making business decisions. Yes, indeed, Gen Y are reaching the management level, and working the matrix — and they will bring a new style and a new approach to your business.  This will transform the way that we all work. Indeed, it has to.

Let’s face it, employers are not in business for the short term … but it is also a challenge to think strategically about your business. After all, there are monthly and quarterly quotas to meet, reports to write, financial and legal obligations to fullfil … and somewhere in there, you have to work with your customers. But it is important to consider how your workforce will change … because the next 5+ years will demonstrate EXACTLY how true the old workforce adage is “my company’s people are its best asset”.

Here are THREE tips to help kick-start your thinking:

• Attraction: What is it about your brand that is attractive to younger workers? Think about the non-cash benefits that can make your business a Gen Y employer of choice.
• Mentor: What mentoring processes do you have in place? How can you bring the experience of older workers into the same space as your younger workers? Consider “buddy” style programs.
• Accelerate: Gen Y are notoriously impatient. Stretch their skills. Give them opportunity, but also boundaries. Remember you want them to succeed, or to fail fast and start again.