Cash-Strapped Boomers a Gift to Employers

By Dave McGinn, the Financial Post

October 18, 2008

Canada

More Baby Boomers forced to delay their retirement because of the recent market crash is actually welcome news for employers.

"In a perverse way, it's actually going to head off a crisis that a number of employers are facing," says Jeffrey Gandz, an organizational behaviour professor at the University of Western Ontario's Richard Ivey School of Business.

For several years now, human resources professionals and others have been predicting a major knowledge gap that will affect companies when huge numbers of Boomers retire, taking with them a vast amount of knowledge and experience and leaving significant talent shortages.

The longer Boomers delay retirement, the more time companies will have to fill that impending gap. But there is a downside, Prof. Gandz warns. "The biggest fear is that in some jobs you won't have to retire from the job, you can retire in the job," says Prof. Gandz.

"That's the worst of all possibilities, when people don't leave but they don't perform. And that's something that employers will have to be much more conscious of."

Indeed, ensuring that low morale does not affect productivity should be top of mind for employers, says Bruce Green, managing partner at Cenera, a Calgarybased human resources and business consultancy firm.

"The No. 1 thing that's going to be most important for individuals is to maintain a positive outlook," he says.

In order to boost morale or to keep employees from changing companies, more employers will have to begin offering flexible work arrangements, says Mr. Green.

"If companies would allow some of the Boomers to have sabbaticals because of the excessive hours they are putting in or because of the stress they are under, they would more likely have a longer retained individual," he says.

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