Is your organization ready for the Silver Tsunami?
More than 10,000 Baby Boomers are retiring every day in America. Unfortunately most companies are just now realizing that this may have an impact on the years of knowledge and experience in highly valued employees that helped their organization grow and thrive could walk out the door tomorrow and there is little you can do to stop it from happening. While you can't keep your seasoned employees forever, there is something you can do to prepare and protect. The Pew Research Center first published the term Silver Tsunami back in 2001, but that hasn't changed the fact that businesses and organizations are woefully unprepared for this dramatic demographic shift. In the Greater New Orleans region, my home region, is seeing more than 70,000 boomers turn 65+ between 2010 and 2020. This is tremendous in a region that only boasts a total population of 1.2 million. Nearly every industry will be affected, but there are some sectors, such as Government Agencies, Construction, and Manufacturing that will be hit much more significantly. These industries typically have employees that have been very loyal and highly valued. However, because they have been on the job "forever" no one ever realizes this person is going to retire one day taking the 10, 20, 30 years of trusted experience with them. Managers have taken their knowledge and experience for granted and just don't believe they will ever leave. Succession Planning is key if an organization is going to ride out the Tsunami. It involves identifying likely exit points of seasoned employees, capturing knowledge and skills capital possessed by those employees, identifying and grooming the next generation to fill the gaps when and where they occur.
