Keeping Employees Engaged

To: Human Resouce Professionals responsible for hiring & keeping new employee.

All of us involved in the human resource game know that the days of lifetime employment are long since over. Some argue that future employees will have as many as 10 employers in their careers. And perhaps that number is low. But should we just sit back and accept that thinking, or can we think of alternatives that will boost the tenure of our new employees from 3 to 5 years to 5 to 7 years and save on the very expensive and disruptive process of replacing employees.

Or, should it even matter? Perhaps the new business-normal is one of high turnover. That is, one in which employers expect employees to leave them after 2 or 3 years. Maybe we should even be planning for it in our strategic plans. But it doesn't seem natural, does it? Maybe it would feel better if the time period was 4 years, after all, we go to 4 years of high school and 4 years of college. But even that seems out of place, especially in high tech companiesl So how do we begin to address the problem of high turnover and low engagement?

Let's ask, why do employees stay with companies? For a long time scholars held that there are two primary reasons why an employee continues with the same organization. One, job satisfaction. If an employee is satisfied with his or her job, his or her work group etc. he or she will stay engaged with the organization. Secondly, if the employee is committed to the organization, the work group, or the work itself, she or he will more than likely stay engaged.

We can all understand job satisfaction when we experience it. What about organizational commitment? What is it? Scholars have debated this for a long time. For some time Meyer, Allen & Smith (1993) and Meyer, & Allen (1997) hold that there are three types of organizational commitment. First, there is affective commitment, second, continuance commitment, and finally normative commitment. An affectively committed employee is committed because he wants to be an employee of that organization (they are emotionally committed to their employer because they feel their values are similar), continuous commited employees are commited because they need to be (they have few alternatives), normatively committed employees are committed to their employer because they feel they ought to be (they believe they owe their commitment to the employer because of the opportunity they were given).

Is it possible that young graduates are not getting something out of the employment experiencce that causes them to leave? Is it possible that the parents of those young employees were viewed as not being treated well by their employers when they werre downsized, or right-sized and the like. Do you think that maybe those young graduates believe their parents gave their all to the organization, but were still dumped in the end and decided that they would not give their allegience to any company who can rationalise pulling someone out of their job without treating them justly? Or are these young people used to getting what they want and when they want it, and if they don't they pick up their marbles and go joing another game. May our focus should not be on why they leave but on why the stay. Perhaps if we can answe the question, "why do you stay with this employer so long", or "what keeps you here?" We might learn more of what we can do to keep the turnover rate higher.

There are scholars asking those questions and working on new explnations of why employees continue to stay engaged with their existing employer. I will have more to write about that in our next piece. In the meantime, I hope this blog gives hiring managers some food for thought. You have a difficult job and I expect it is about to get more difficult in the next few years.

Reference List:
Meyer, J.P., Allen, N.J., & Smith, C.A. (1993). Commitment to organizations and occupations: Extension and test of a three-component conceptualization. Journal of Applied Psychology 78(4), 538-551.

Meyer, J.P. & Allen, N.J. Commitment in the workplace: Theory research and application. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications

Glenn J. Forte, President
Collective Knowledge Advisors, LLC
517 E. Lancaster Avenue
Suite #402
Downingtown, PA 19335
Ph. 610.269.7851
Cell: 484.880.8862
email: gjforte@ckallc.com
Website: www.ckallc.com

Time Management Plan - TMP

Do you have enough time to get your job done? Do you plan your day, week, month, quarter, and year? Or is your time, or lack of it, controlling you?

In my recruiting practice, I see evidence all over the place that managers, like myself, aren't planning effectively. I send executive resumes to senior managers and quite often don't hear back from them until the really good candidates are already hired by their competitor. It is almost as frustrating as a hiring manager nit-picking a resume to death and ultimately not even talking to a really great candidate. But they are specific issues and pet peeves of my own.

Our time is an asset that belongs to us that we often let other people and/or circumstances control. Think about these common scenarios. How often do you send an email to a subordinate that is answered within a minute or two of you clicking on the send button? How often do you find yourself being controlled by the telephone, email, or people coming into your office to "talk?"

Last evening my son called me to tell me that he was listening to Howard Stern a few days earlier, and that Howard reminded him of me. I braced for the answer of how that possibly could be. He said that Howard was talking about time managment that he learned from Covey/Franklin Planner. He said, dad, "he sounded just like you several years ago."

Here's what he meant. I preached for several years about all of my direct reports having their own TMP, and actually made them submit one to me. What Howard learned, I learned several years ago. You need to manage your time: First set a time to read your email, once in the morning, and once in the afternoon. Let me assure you that you will be tempted to sneek looks at it between times. Don't give in. You can also check at the end of the day if you wish. Do the same thing with phone calls that you can return. Set a time each day to return calls, again in the morning and afternoon. When someone calls before the time designated, ask them if you can call back betwee xtime and xtime and then do it. Do the same thing with your direct reports, unless an emergency (a real one) ask them to stay out of your office until the time allocated. When do you do all this planning. I do it first thing in the morning, others I know do it in the evening for the next day. I also do it for each week and the entire month.

My suggestion; try it for one month, give it an honest go. Avoid the temptations of not sticking with it, and see if you don't find even more time to available to get other things done. Once you master it, you will find the potential that time provides is considerably rewarding.

Like Howard, I've used a Franklin/Covey planer for just about 13 years. They are excellent tools, but not the only ones. The point is, you need a tool like them to work your TMP effectively but it doesn't have to be fancy or complicated. Good luck managing your time.


Glenn J. Forte, President
Collective Knowledge Advisors, LLC
517 E. Lancaster Avenue, Suite #402
Downingtown, PA 19335
ph. 610.269.7851
fx. 610.269.9852
email: gjofrte@ckallc.com

Will the Baby-Boom Retirement Era Bring on a Reritualization of Retirement?

Why should a senior of retirement age want to stay engaged with their existing organization?

Let us consider that question divorced from the financial necessity that may give the individual no choice but to stay engaged. Furthermore, let's consider the question simply from the employee's point of view and not the corporation's. The answer is quite simple. It is because adults continue to develop throughout their lifetime.

Erikson’s & Adult Development

It was Erikson who was one of the first theorists to examine adult development (Hoare, 2002). He is primarily noted for life stage development theory that envisioned eight stages of human development ranging from infancy in the first stage to maturity in the eighth stage.

Prior to Erikson’s focus on the various stages of adult life, theorists whose writing was directed at human development ended their treatment of development as the individual entered adulthood (Hoare, 2002). Erikson’s first work in which he noted the various partitions of adult life was published in 1950 entitled Childhood and Society. Just nine years after that publication, psychological reference lists began to distinguish the various stages of adult life. By the end of the twentieth-century there were so many distinctions of adult stages of development it was impossible to categorize them (Hoare, 2002).

While Erikson may have defined the life cycle in terms of a sequence of stages with reference to age especially in the early stages of development, he did not specify age as the defining point at which one era succeeds a previous one. The defining characteristic of each stage, for Erikson, was the fundamental crises that arise at a given point in one’s development. Each stage deals with its own fundamental crisis that must be resolved before the individual’s development proceeds to the next stage. The chart below depicts Erikson’s eight stages of human development (Erikson, 1980, Fig. III, p. 129).

Stage I Infancy: Trust vs. Mistrust
Stage II Early: Childhood Autonomy vs. Shame & Doubt
Stage III Play: Age Initiative vs. Guilt
Stage IV School Age: Industry vs. Inferiority
Stage V Adolescence: Identity vs. Identity Diffusion
Stage VI Young Adult: Intimacy vs. Isolation
Stage VII Adulthood: Generativity vs. Self-Absorption
Stage VIII Mature Adulthood: Wisdom vs. Disgust/Despair

Stage VII & VIII

The basic conflict for the middle adult stage (Stage VII) age 45 to 65 is generativity/stagnation. Erikson (1959, 1980) identifies generativity as one’s establishment and guidance of the following generation. It follows that stagnation is the reverse of establishing and guiding the next generation. The conflict between generativity and stagnation must be resolved before the adult can move to the final stage, maturity (Stage VIII) age 65 to death, which has as its fundamental conflict integrity/despair, disgust.

Once an individual reaches maturity s/he accepts the responsibility of adulthood and therefore possesses integrity/wisdom in that the individual is able to stand up for their lifestyle against all questions and threats. The conflict is between integrity and a feeling that time is running out. In later writing Erikson (1982) identifies the conflict as between wisdom and despair. At that time he wrote about the changing meaning of old age. He held that individuals in Stage VII interpret old age differently as they approach Stage VIII. But he also included a social interpretation of old age that was changing as individuals are living longer lives, and able to anticipate the ripeness of old age. Consider Erikson’s (1982) thoughts that have some significance, “No doubt, the role of old age needs to be reobserved, rethought… Thus a historical change like the lengthening of the average life span calls for viable reritualizations …” (p. 62).

The Reritualization of Retirement

Retirement, one might say, is in the process of being reritualized. We are living longer and with much more vitality than our parents did at the same age. Moreover the workforce may very well be in need of the generativity that adults approaching stage VIII might bring to the table. So why should we want to retire? Is it time for reritualization of the manner in which organizations deal with retirement aged senior employees? The answer, I argue, should be yes. But like everything else in our society our eyes may be closed until there is no choice. The baby-boom retirement scenario may just be the vehicle to usher in that reritualization. When employers have trouble filling positions with younger people, perhaps they will have no choice but to hang on to their senior employees. Then employer and employee will both benefit.

References

Erikson, E. H. (1963/1950). Childhood and society (2nd. ed.). New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
Erikson, E. H. (1959). Identity and the life cycle. New York: International Universities Press, Inc.
Erikson, E. H. (1980). Identity and the life cycle: A reissue. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
Erikson, E. H. (1982). The life cycle completed (1st. ed.). New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
Hoare, C. H. (2002). Erikson on development in adulthood: New insights from the unpublished papers. New York: Oxford University Press.

Retirement: not as easy as I thought it would be

According to Robert C. Atchely, a noted sociologist/gerontologist, “Retirement is a condition in which an individual is forced or allowed to be and is employed less than full-time (whatever that may mean in his particular job) and in which his income is derived at least in part from a retirement pension earned through prior years of service as a job holder” {p. 1}. [1]

According to that definition I am retired; having left a previous employer of 37 years two years ago to begin my own consulting firm. I left before the typical retirement age due to a relatively blessed pension that could afford me the time to either succeed or fail at my intended endeavors, which in addition to beginning my own business, was to finish a doctoral degree that began a few years before retirement.

To tell the truth, I was thrilled to begin something that I thought about for a long time. And now, two years later I can tell you that I would not change a thing, even if my current endeavors fail. The interesting thing is that something did change, but I did not consciously realize it until recently.

For the last two years, as I attempted to build my consulting business, I worked in an office by myself. It was torture for me, as I am a person who not only loves, but also needs to be around others; engaged with them in a common endeavor. For the first two years I could not get excited about what I was doing. There was no motivation at all. It was dumbfounding for me until I realized that I had gone through a major life transformation. It is interesting that it did not happen on a conscious level. Consciously, although feeling guilty that I was not motivated, I was pretty happy being in charge of my life. But something was missing. I was not the same person, although I really did not know why.

I have since learned that my experience is not unique. The founder of the Career Coach Institute, and master certified career coach; Marcia Bench predicted my experience in her 2004 Retire Your Way training manual. In quoting from R. P. Johnson's The New Retirement: Discovering Your Dream (2001), she wrote that “Most (people) will retire for the first time, unsuccessfully, at age 57. Why ‘unsuccessfully’? Because…almost none of them invest time and energy planning the non financial aspects of retiring” {p. 9}. [2]

Would an adequate planning of the non-financial aspects of my retirement have aided my situation? We will never know, but it certainly could not have hurt. What did help was what some call a disorienting dilemma (more on that later), and the fact that my youngest daughter has joined my firm.

The lesson for those of you who plan to retire soon, think about your non-financial wellbeing before your life transforms from the collective context of the working world to the non-collective context of retirement. You have a lot of life left, live it well, especially in retirement.

Here’s where a retirement coach can really be an asset.

If you are interested in finding a retirement coach, please contact us.

Whether your experiences of retirement are similar, or completely different, please share them with us.


[1] Atchley, R. C. (1976). The sociology of retirement. Cambridge, MA: Schenkman Publishing Company Inc.

[2] Johnson, R. P. (2001). The new retirement: Discovering your dream. St. Louis, MO: World Press, cited in Bench, M. (2004). Retire your way. Lake Havasu City, AZ: High Flight Press.

Glenn J. Forte, President
Collective Knowledge Advisors, LLC
517 E. Lancaster Avenue, Suite 402
Downingtown, PA 19335
phone: 610.269.7851
mobile: 484.880.8862
fax: 610.269.7852
email: gjforte@ckallc.com
http://www.collectiveknowledgeadvisors.com
http://www.ckallc.com

Baby-boomer retirement: Demographic crisis or not

Introduction

This blog will be devoted to all four areas of our consulting practice, human resources, coaching, executive search, and plastics packaging manufacturing. You can obtain more detail regarding those functions by visiting our website at www.collectiveknowledgeadvisors.com or more simply, www.ckallc.com.

The topics will be diverse in substance. Many of our upcoming blogs will focus on what some are calling the demographic crisis associated with the baby-boomer retirement wave, which has already begun. We will be discussing such topics as how and why employers should recruit more senior employees, what binds employees to their organization, and what employers can do to obtain their employees' commitment. We will also discuss the fundamentals of coaching and career development, and to a lesser extent plastic manufacturing as it relates to pharmaceutical packaging. Guest authors will also be invited to post essays. {Note: in order to give credit to authors who have been referenced, footnotes will be added in the following manner [1]. All cited references will be listed at the end of the blog}.

Demographic Facts

The current U.S. baby-boomer population, those born between the years 1946 and 1964, is estimated to be between 76 and 78 million[1]. In the year 2000 the baby-boomer population represented 55 % of people between the ages of 25 and 54 in the U.S. At that time the oldest of the baby-boomers was 54 years of age. The 2000 U.S. census reported “a 28-percent increase in the number (of people) aged 35 to 64. As the large generation of baby boomers began passing their 45th. birthday, the population aged 45 to 54 swelled 49 percent during the decade (1990 – 1999), (p. 3)[2].” While the civilian labor force is projected to increase 10% between 2004 and 2014 to approximately 160 million workers, workers in the 55 and over age group is projected to grow by five times the overall growth[3].

According to a 2004 AARP/SHRM survey, approximately 80 percent of the baby-boomer population expects to work after quitting their current full time job at age 66. That statistic is essentially unchanged from a prior survey completed in 1998. According to the 2004 survey, half of the boomer population is over 47 years of age, but a full two-thirds of those surveyed feel younger. That is a 13% swing in the positive direction from the 1998 survey[4].

Will the Role of Older Workers be Reinvented?

The question I pose to our readers is why do the baby-boomers feel the need to quit their current full time job? The next question is will employers let them go without a fight, since according to some researchers virtually all sectors of the economy are on the verge of a serious labor shortage that presents an opportunity for organizations to “reinvent the role of older workers” (p. 243)[5]. They warned that the old age dependency ratio, the ratio of individuals 65 years of age and older to individuals of conventional working age, 18 to 64 years of age would double from 20:100 in 1985 to 41:100 in 2035. They wrote, “just over the horizon looms a demographic time bomb for the nation’s employers and no one has figured out yet how to defuse it"(p. 243) [5]. That notwithstanding, has anyone even thought about diffusing it?

The U.S. economy is not immune to business decision makers ignoring reality until they are literally at death's door as the U.S. automakers were when they did not respond to the threat of higher quality, and more efficient automobiles brought to this country from abroad. Will a similar situation develop when talented and experienced senior employees are permitted to walk away from their organization and into retirement or to another employer whose business, culture and history are unknown to them? In what is certain to be a tight labor market, why would any business executive run the risk of losing decades of talent by not responding to the possible demographic problem posed by the potential retirement of their baby-boomer employees? A subject we will discuss in our next blog.

Glenn J. Forte, President
Collective Knowledge Advisors, LLC
517 E. Lancaster Avenue, Suite 402
Downingtown, PA 19335
phone: 610.269.7851
mobile: 484.880.8862
fax: 610.269.7852
email: gjforte@ckallc.com
http://www.collectiveknowledgeadvisors.com
http://www.ckallc.com

Footnotes

[1] Cramton, S., Hodge, J., & Mishra, J. (1996). Transition - ready or not: The aging of America's work force. Public Personnel Management, 25(2), 243-253.
Quigley, M., & Kaufman, L. E. (2005). Hire calling. Retrieved August 31, 2005, from www.aarp.com.
Shactman, D. I., & Altman, S. H. (2002). Overview: Issues and options for an aging population. In S. H. Altman & D. L. Shactman (Eds.), Policies for an aging society. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press.

[2] Census Bureau, U. S. (2000, March 2005). All across the USA: Population distribution and composition 2000. Retrieved Dec. 31, 2005, from
www.census.gov/population/pop-profile/2000/profile2000.pdf.

[3] Department of Labor, U. S. (2005). BLS release: 2004-14 employment projections. Retrieved Dec. 31, 2005, from http://www.bls.gov/bls/newsrels.htm
Roper-ASW. (2004). Baby boomers envision retirement ii: Survey of baby boomers' expectations for retirement. Washington, DC: AARP Knowledge Management.
Staff. (1998). Older workers survey (Survey). Alexandria, VA: Society for Human Resource Management.

[4] Quigley, M., & Kaufman, L. E. (2005). Hire calling. Retrieved August 31, 2005, from www.aarp.com.

[5] Cramton, S., Hodge, J., & Mishra, J. (1996). Transition - ready or not: The aging of America's work force. Public Personnel Management, 25(2), 243-253.
p. 243.

Welcome to Collective Knowledge Advisors Blog

We offer a diverse advisory service that includes:

- Virtual Human Resources (VHR) - a service designed for small companies that do not have the ability to support their own Human Resource department or personnel

- Career Coaching, Executive Coaching & Retirement Coaching services for individuals & corporations

- Executive Search Consulting

- Plastics Manufacturing Consulting

Stay tuned for information, articles and tips in these areas.

Glenn