Determining the next step: how organizations and aging employees determine whether to stay or to go
| Published date | 09 April 2020 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/SHR-03-2020-0019 |
| Pages | 111-115 |
| Date | 09 April 2020 |
| Author | Tom Wilson |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour,Employee behaviour |
Determining the next step: how
organizations and aging employees
determine whether to stay or to go
Tom Wilson
Abstract
Purpose –This paper aims to discuss the guiding principles for how to find solutions to a complex
problem facing HR professionals: What to do with those who could or shouldretire and move on to the
next stageof their lives?
Design/methodology/approach –The author offers five guiding principles that may help you find a
solution suited to your organization.These principles should help you assess where to focusyour efforts
and how to build a plan for moving forward. He then provides several potential solutions for HR
professionalsand their aging workforce to consider.
Findings –The challenge to the human resource professional and the organization’s executives is to
understand these guiding principles and develop solutions that work for the organization, business
conditionsand people.
Originality/value –With these guiding questions and considerations in mind, HR professionals can
better helptheir aging workforce stay, go or find a solutionin between.
Keywords Human resource management, Retirement, Health, Aging workforce
Paper type Viewpoint
Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by
the ones you did do. So, throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade
winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. –Mark Twain
In addition to turbulent markets and disruptive global competition, companies are facing a
new challenge –demographic shifts in the workforce. While there is much focus on how to
manage millennials, there is anotherchallenge at the other end of the age scale –the aging
workforce. This article will discuss the guiding principles for how to find solutions to this
complex problem: What to do with those who could or should retire and move onto the next
stage of their lives?
There are 10,000 people per day turning 65 in the USA, and this will continue for another 18
years. In addition, Harris Poll conducted a survey for Transamerica Center for Retirement
Studies and found that 24 per cent of workers plan to retire at 65, 54 per cent after age 65
and 14 per cent do not plan to retire at all[1].
In this survey, 78 per cent want a graduated transition from work life to retirement life.
While most individuals want a ramp for easing into their post-work life, organizations have
systems, structures and expectations to “terminate” the employee on his/her last day all
at once.
This has resulted in a complex set of motivational challenges where some people continue
to work well into their 60s, 70s and perhaps 80s; some may “retire on the job”; and others
Tom Wilson is based at
Emerson Consulting Group
Inc., Concord,
Massachusetts, USA.
DOI 10.1108/SHR-03-2020-0019 VOL. 19 NO. 3 2020, pp. 111-115, ©Emerald Publishing Limited, ISSN 1475-4398 jSTRATEGIC HR REVIEW jPAGE 111
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