In conversations this week, I discovered that by 2014, more than 50% of a certain oil companies most prized oil and gas discovery workers will have retired. For an industry whose share price is measured on the number of oil and gas fields discovered each year this is a disturbing trend.
One of the possible solution - social networks. 'Alumni' knowledge networkers are emerging in high knowledge industries (such as biotech and consulting) to retain access to the people most valued. As well having access to the alumni, there's growing evidence that social networking tools signficantly help those at risk of isolation such as homeworkers, those on maternity/paternity leave, in turn aiding our diversity and vitality agenda.
We know our workforce are already self-organizing and connecting on social networking tools such as Linkedin and Facebook - so should we be starting new networks or harnessing the ones already out there? and How can we leverage an increasingly popular consumer trend to our benefit?
Posts
Aaron
ReplyDeleteMost industries can't wait that long and call it the anti-boom (from when the baby-boomers retire: between now and 5 to 10 years from now).
General Mills (them indeed) are using MOSS and the Wiki/blog tools to capture knowledge from these people pro-actively well ahead of their leaving date.
IBM (I believe) set aside the 3 months before somebody leaving, and ask these people to document their "knowledge" into wiki/blog environments - if it was indeed IBM, it won't be in MOSS!
Cynical but harsh view is that, at that age, the likelihood of people being available post-retirement for any input to the active workforce "decreases rapidly", whilst the dictionaries stay.
Luc
In addition to that, I fear that many of the workers leaving may be very reluctant to be active. A solution may be a reward system of some kind.
ReplyDeleteI can't also resist the impression that most of the babyboomers of today are not that active on Internet and as tech-savvy as we may like to. Whereas most of tomorrow's workers have grown up with computers, they haven't. I may be entirely wrong here, it's just my real-life experience speaking, no statistics to back me.
Just my two cents.
Bauke
Many execs are taking up consulting and advisory roles post their 'typical career' - as they want to keep their brains, bodies and networks active as they enter retirements.
ReplyDeleteI think it would be wrong to generalise and say that everyone is going to sit on a beach and sip Pina coladas. The US collegiate system is great at maintaining connections to retired professors (keeping them connected in many cases as mentors for faculty and students) – you do of course have a choice – but interesting many do choose to ‘stay connected’ given the option.
Importantly the baby boomers have 3 important characteristics
(1) Time - to spend online / keep connected
(2) Money - to invest in technology to support social technologies (pcs, home network etc)
(3) Motivation (family / grandchildren / friends) - all over the world and wanted to keep connected to them.
Fear of isolation and limited mobility can also be strong drivers staying connected. I know plenty of folk in the 70s+ who are using technology as a their gateway to the world.
How many people do you know who once retired just sit on the beach? I can't think of many... maybe this is time for a poll? ;)