One of the most significant changes organizations will face over the next decade will take place as baby boomers prepare to retire and Gen Y comes on board. Organizations, smart ones anyway, are asking tough questions like this one:
What intellectual property (IP), knowledge, and “know-how” is walking out the door when baby boomers retire?
Seriously, give this one some thought. Whether you’re an executive, manager, or consultant, think about how the answer to this question will impact your organization, your clients. Over the next decade, there will be a significant change in the demographics of America’s workforce as baby boomers retire, leaving younger workers with less experience to fill their place and leaving many businesses unprepared. There’s a real sense of urgency with this business problem.
Let’s look at Gen Y for a moment. I like Jason Young’s August 2009 simple and concise blog post where he identifies 10 Key Gen Y Characteristics.
- Continually connected
- Speak their own language
- Skeptical of authority
- Influenced by peers
- Seek recognition and fame
- Enjoy absurdity and off humor
- Embrace subcultures
- Skim text and information quickly
- Easily bored
- Expressive and digitally creative
Generation Y (born 1981-1999 and approximately 80 million in North America) celebrate diversity; they are optimistic, inventive and individualistic; they rewrite the rules; they enjoy a pleasurable lifestyle; they don’t see the relevance of most institutions; they are masters of technology and social media; were nurtured by their parents; see friends as family; like a collaborative supportive work environment and interactive work relationships; have high demands and expectations; want to work for companies that are socially responsible and they want a balanced life (Ray Williams. Why Are You Not Like Me? The Generational Gap In The Workplace. Psychology Today, September 2009).
As companies realize what’s at stake with baby boomers leaving the workforce, and begin to understand Gen Y, companies should be asking questions such as:
- How do we retain the baby boomer IP?
- How might we keep baby boomers engaged to continue to provide valuable insights and information?
- How might we capture, extract, glean what the baby boomers know before they leave?
- How might we use social technologies to bridge the gap between baby boomers and next generation leaders?
- How might we leverage Gen Y’s comfort and mastery of technology and social media to bridge the information gap between both generations?
Change agents that have the savvy skills and connectedness to help companies face these challenges—extracting IP from baby boomers, addressing generational differences, and using social networking and technologies to bridge the information gap—will no doubt impact the bottom line.
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Mark,
I like the post. I definitely agree that the boomers have IP in their current organizations. However is it really that much? How much does it matter? With the amount of IP that exists on the internet (your blog, my blog, everybody's blog) and a Gen Y/Millennial culture that knows how to go find it… what is the impact of the loss? Or rather who cares if the boomers leave, their time in the workplace is long since over, or winding down.
I strongly believe organizations need to approach the idea from the opposite end. What should we be extracting from the young ones as they enter and rise through the corporate/organizational ranks? How should we be CHANGING business to welcome the new talent… to me it seems a bit backwards to concern oneself with where the workplace was or has been when it won't be that way for much longer.
That said I really find value in your last comments about change agents being important. I think corporations don't quite value these people in the organization the right way… however I know from experience and text book learning that every organization things change is easy to manage, so it would follow they over look the need for real change agents!
Good post. I will re-tweet it and re-post on FB.
Cheers!
Pardon my error… I meant Melissa as the addressee of my rant. I swear I can't read sometimes!
Hi Asaad,
Thanks for the comments. Given your comments, I'm guessing you're not a baby boomer. ; ) I don't view extracting information from the baby boomers OR the next generations as and "or" statement. It's really an AND statement. We need information from both. There are plenty of organizations where the intellectual property or "how things work" in terms of technology, products, processes, and even customer relationships is not written down and just in people's heads. I can't think of an organization that wants to let IP walk out the door. I really like the question you posed, "How should we be CHANGING business to welcome the new talent…?"
I shall write my next blog post on this question.
Cheers!
Melissa
Interesting Questions! On the topic of Gen Y I came across a video post "Jack in the Box" by Vineet Nayar, he asks if our organisations today are ready for this new generations. You might be interested to see this.http://www.vineetnayar.com/jack-in-the-box/
Mark,
Thanks for the comments and welcome to RIVERFORK! Thanks for the pointer to the link as well.
Cheers~
Melissa