career Archives

Organizations Aren’t Prepared For the Aging Workforce

May 10, 2017 by Sharlyn Lauby Leave a Comment

According to a survey from the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), organizations aren’t prepared for dealing with an aging workforce. Only one-third of companies are examining their policies and practices to address this issue. In addition, an extra 20 percent had decided that no changes are necessary to their existing policies and practices. I encourage you to check out the survey findings. It’s a good read.

It reminded me of Ted C. Fishman’s book, “Shock of Gray”. The book talks about the aging population and the implications for business, consumers, etc. Frankly, it doesn’t seem logical to me that a large portion of our society is getting older and it wouldn’t impact the workplace.

However, in speaking with my HR colleagues, maybe businesses do realize that the workforce is aging. And that they need to do something about it. The challenge becomes reframing the retirement conversation inside organizations.

It’s not as easy as it looks. People are starting to realize the importance, but it will take a change in basic assumptions to get the conversations going.

Years ago, retirement was like resigning. You went into the office one day and you said, “I’m retiring.” And you did. When you retired, you stopped working and started collecting your pension. Done. Finite.

Today, retirement looks very different. It’s looks like…well, unretirement. An increasing number of older workers are planning to stay full-time longer. They are planning a phased retirement. Some employees are announcing their retirement, leaving the working world for a few months, and then asking to return! Organizations could be facing some unique challenges if they’ve never dealt with these situations before.

Companies need to figure out how to allow retirement conversations to happen within their culture. Organizations will benefit when employees feel comfortable talking about their plans for the future and the company can better positioned to react to them. Valuable historical knowledge about the company can be transferred. Jobs can be redesigned to accommodate part-time or contingent work, allowing the company to retain talent. Older workers can mentor or coach young professionals and help with their leadership development.

Aging workers and retirement are not dirty words in the workplace. They are also not synonyms for resignation. An aging workforce is thinking about retirement. Companies should be thinking about it as well. There’s an opportunity to create a win-win. But it takes communication.

Image captured by Sharlyn Lauby during a photo tour in New Orleans, LA

BOOK REVIEW: Blog2Book: Repurposing Content to Discover the Book You’ve Already Written

May 3, 2017 by Sharlyn Lauby 1 Comment

You guys know that blogging over at HR Bartender was the spark that started this blog. We enjoy blogging very much and want to share what we know so that, if others are so inclined, they can start their own blog.

The first step in successful blogging is writing content that’s consumable. Please note: I didn’t say writing unique content. It’s true you want to write in your voice and you want to be authentic and share your point of view. But every blog post doesn’t have to be unique. It’s perfectly okay to repurpose content.

Repurposing content is the practice of modifying a previously written piece for another use. Here’s an example: I used to work for a manager who published the same memo every year about tacit approval. I liked the memo so much that I still have a copy some ten plus years later. And every year on HR Bartender, I write a post about tacit approval.

Not only can you repurpose blog content but, you might want to repurpose content to write a book. My friend Cathy Fyock has written a book on how to turn your existing blog content into a book. It’s called “Blog2Book: Repurposing Content to Discover the Book You’ve Already Written”.

Writing a blog takes a lot of time. It makes no sense to write a unique post and say to yourself, “Okay, I can never write about that topic again.” Or “I can never tell that story again.” We repeat ourselves all the time in our communications. Sometimes it can be valuable to repeat core messages. In Cathy’s book, she outlines how bloggers can reuse their blog content to flesh out potential book topics and tell a long story over the course of several shorter posts.

What I enjoyed about the book is that Cathy didn’t stop after convincing a reader to consider repurposing content. She went on to give readers some things to consider when developing a book project. I’ve written two books (and am working on number three as we speak). I can tell you from experience that each book is its own unique project. How you research it, write it, and later publish and market it. Having some understanding of the book publishing process can be very helpful as you’re blogging and building community.

If you’re looking to start a blog and wondering where you’re going to get all that content from, this book is for you. If you want to write a book, and think blogging might be a good first step, this book is for you. Starting a blog and writing a book are not out of reach. It does take a bit of planning. Blog2Book can help guide your writing journey.

Why Unretirement and Why It’s Important

February 1, 2017 by Keith Lauby 8 Comments

We remember what retirement used to look like. One day, you just stop working and start retiring – living off your company pension with a little help from Social Security. That’s what our parents did. Today, for the most part, all of that has changed.

To help us understand, we might want to look at what retirement really is. The Cambridge Dictionary defines retirement as “the point at which someone stops working”. If we accept that as the true definition of retirement, we can then understand the need for something new. The need for unretirement.

Unretirement is the move from working full-time to working . . . less. But it’s more than that. It’s working, but doing something we want to do. And getting paid for it. Most of all, unretirement is earning the opportunity to live on our own terms.

Best of all? It’s exactly what the labor market wants from us.

Right now, ten thousand people reach retirement age every day according to a recent Pew Research study. The National Institute on Aging reports that, on average, only 33 percent of retirees continue working full-time. The result is a growing labor shortage that is creating a real need for our skills.

In most cases, businesses don’t want to hire more and more full-time employees. But they are looking for skilled workers who want to help out and take on some of the work. This is called the gig economy, and finance company Intuit predicts that, by 2020, 40 percent of U.S. workers will fall into this category. In fact, entire enterprises such as Lyft and Airbnb have risen out of gig employment.

That’s where unretirement comes in. It’s identifying that encore career and understanding the best way for it to fit into our retirement life. Wikipedia defines encore career as “work in the second half of life that combines continued income, greater personal meaning, and social impact.”

Unretirement is also focusing on our health and wellness so we can get the most out of the fun things we want to do in retirement. We may have to upgrade a skill or two along the way. But no successful unretirement comes without a cost.

It’s time for a fresh perspective about life after work. It’s time for unretirement.

Image captured by Sharlyn Lauby while traveling in Maui, HI