Respecting Your Elders

For the last decade, and following a wakeup call from Mckinsey’s Report, organisations have placed a strong emphasis on the war for talent. There has inevitably been significant attention paid to younger workers, looking at how to hire in the best talent, building training and development opportunities, incentives and how best to mould, shape, develop and hold on to future leaders. Making sure that the talent pool continues to be resourced is a key challenge. However, in focusing on the young, have we been neglecting our older workers? Is the baby-boomer generation being forgotten?

When Position Ignition was first created, we wanted to bring our holistic approach to careers to the market. We had created a far reaching and powerful process for individuals to use at key points of transition in their lives and their careers. We thought hard about which market segment to focus our attention onto first; in which areas could we bring the biggest impact and affect the most value. No-one was really watching those in their late 40s and 50s, even though there is a growing need to harness the experience and wisdom that these individuals have. It is also such a significant stage in our lives with each of us being faced with a range of complex challenges.

The demographic wave that has been talked about for a long time is now upon us. The Baby Boomer generation (born between 1946 and 1964) starts reaching 65 years this year. Increasing numbers of people are “retiring” relative to the working population and more people are living for longer. This is an unsustainable set of issues for a country to manage without changes in public policy.  Last year, the government announced that the default retirement age was being removed. People can now retire whenever they chose. 

We can work for longer, live for longer and look forward to healthier, longer retirements. We can continue to build our pensions, if we choose to, and we have second lives or second careers ahead of us. However, how clear are we about how to do this?

Do people know what they want, when they wish to leave work, what they want to do or even what they can do? From an organisational perspective, do we want to keep all of these people working? Will they continue to be as productive as before? The answers are generally - probably not, which is why we need to think about how to help workers move forwards and also why organisations have decided to work with Position Ignition.  

Employers will continue to be driven by an efficiency agenda. Shareholder value is the primary driver – how is profitability built and sustained so allowing dividend returns and a rising share price. Organisations will continue to optimise their overhead costs as part of the continual drive for greater returns. What happens to the older employee in this arrangement?

Employees at their later stages in life often hold key positions usually based on a vast amount of knowledge, expertise and wisdom. This can be overlooked in pursuit of the efficiency drive and the often short term view taken by businesses. What tends to happen is that less experienced workers go into the same areas of “failure” that older workers will have seen and avoided. So much more professional thinking and resource has been expended on recruiting, selecting and assessment and more recently engagement and talent management. The “releasing” of employees has been pretty basic – either dismiss after a performance management process (not that well undertaken judging by the increase in Employment Tribunal claims in the last 20 years) or redundancy and sometime, outplacement.

There is a better way. The starting assumption is that older workers could go for a different deal.  Just because they have been working at a certain level (full-time and expensive relative to a younger worker) does not mean that they would not recontract with their employer. What might this look like?

Much of what Position Ignition does is around helping organisations to harness the value that older workers can bring; in ways that are in line with organisational goals and which helps each person individually. 

Position Ignition brings a fresh approach to career re-alignment. By taking the time to understand someone’s entire working world and to help them evaluate their options creatively, we end up producing a much needed, clear plan and pathway that both the organisation and older employee can move forwards with confidently. Some people end up moving out of the firm onto do other things such as starting their own business or building a portfolio career. Others decide to stay; but in a different capacity, such as being a mentor, advisor, Non-Executive or working part time -  so that they can harness the skills and knowledge that they have to offer, but make time for other areas of their life. These decisions and plans come about as a result of a detailed process which focuses very much on the individual and where they can go. We also work very closely with the HR Director or Heads of Talent and also the business owners.

For someone in their late career, thinking about what to do next is a huge question. It is one of the most significant transition points in anyone’s life. For an organisation, harnessing what someone can do at that point and helping them through the shift can be hugely valuable. Increasingly organisations recognise the importance of being “an employer of choice” – that is, an employer that individuals want to work for (recruitment pipelines full based on recommendation of current workers) and want to stay with (good and regular feedback processes and excellent benefits systems when successful).  These employers need to get more mature at handling the release of their workers too. Rather than being reactive as they have to be during an economic downturn, why not have a clear strategy for how employees are supported when they have run their time in the organisation. 

Employers of choice will want as happy an ending to an employment arrangement as the original joining process. How do they achieve that? That is where Position Ignition’s process kicks in; allowing an individual the time and space to make plans for the next phase of their life.  Individual clients examine their capabilities, their health, their wealth, their family situation and more.

There are a variety of options available in working with Position Ignition but it’s knowing what it takes to make these kinds of shift and how to go about it that is really important. Often workers have stayed in one company or sector for decades and so anything other than what they are currently doing may seem daunting.

We believe in looking at the skills each person may need in order to launch themselves beyond their current work with confidence. This is important and valuable to the individual concerned but also for the organisation in terms of brand and reputation building and ensuring that moral and motivation levels are kept high. Position Ignition sees a future where any worker will need to become more and more specialised whilst developing some critical generic skills (we call this the “T shaped” career. One key element of this concept is that our networks need to be deep and useful rather than huge and dissipated. Our networks will be built from early in our working lives and will contain people that know our work well. These same people will always know the value that we carry and will help us engage in economic work.

Organisations are faced with the constant pressures to ensure shareholder value. Maximising productivity, value and keeping costs low are important for every business. In searching for new ways to increase efficiency, we have moved towards outsourcing, contracting and a world where restructuring is the norm. As we cut costs and reduce overheads, people considerations become critical and we end up needing to think about who we may need to let go. Position Ignition provides an effective, professional, mature and transparent way to help organisations to do this. We also give the person full control and responsibility for their own future.

Authors:

Simon North and Nisa Chitakasem, founders of Position Ignition, the UK’s leading career consulting and late career management company. Visit their HR Blog for their latest insights and ideas on the most topical HR issues.