Surviving The Baby Boomer Exodus

In 2011, the oldest of the baby boomers will turn 65, marking a turning point in corporate America. As the 76 million baby boomers begin to leave the workforce, the United States will experience the most dramatic economic and demographic changes in its history. For the first time we are facing a mass retirement movement. To survive unscathed, companies must begin planning and preparation for this transition.

Think about your own company for a moment. How will you handle this transition? How will you groom your Generation X workers to step into leadership roles? How are you going to transfer the 40-plus years of wisdom and experience that the boomers possess to your younger workers? How do you plan to keep your company successful and running smoothly with a deficit of workers?
The bottom line is that all companies need to harness the young leadership already in their organization so the baby boomer exodus has as little impact as possible.
Today and tomorrow, Promotional Consultant Today will explore avenues to make the upcoming transition period a smooth one.

Know What You’re Up Against
You need to find out as soon as possible how this mass retirement will affect your company. Get with your human resources department and find out your workplace demographics. How many baby boomers are currently working in the company, what are their positions, and what are their anticipated retirement dates?
For example, are all your middle managers positioned to retire in the next five years? Will your sales department shrink by half in the next few years? You need to know what the impact will be on your company so you can start planning and be ready for the transition.

Develop A Knowledge Transfer Strategy
Most companies have policy manuals detailing each position’s job requirements. While such a policy manual is a good start for grooming younger workers, it’s simply not enough. After all, you can only document so much of the day-to-day activities. Plus, there are subtleties of every job — things you do just because experience and knowledge points you in a certain direction. You can’t document those kinds of things — go a step further and develop a strategy/policy/training system for transferring the knowledge and skills of the older workers to the younger successors.

Mentor Younger Workers
As part of the knowledge transfer strategy, companies need to implement a mentoring program. For a company to have a successful transition, the younger generation needs to work side-by-side with the older workers for a significant period of time. You simply cannot transfer 40-plus years of knowledge and expertise overnight. Therefore, if you know that a key person is going to be retiring in three years, have that person start mentoring a younger worker now.
Again, this is not something you can do during a new hire’s 90-day training period. True mentoring takes a year to accomplish at the very least. Additionally, Generation X workers who receive this sort of long-term mentoring will feel more valued and will be more likely to stay with the company long-term.
Tomorrow we’ll look at retaining older workers, the management team and successful transitions.

Source: Anne Houlihan is president of Satori Seal. In addition, she is founder of Elevated Leadership International, where she shares more than 25 years of hands-on corporate experience and coaching to help companies of all sizes.

By. Promotional Consultant Today

Fighting The Word ‘No’
You’ve done the research. You’ve made the cold calls. You’ve made the sales pitch. But, your job as a promotional consultant begins when the client says “No.” It’s when the client says “No” that your job really begins.
Following are a few tips to consider when you hear rejection.

Don’t Take “No” As A Personal Rejection
If you are going to be a top sales producer, you’ve got to learn how to deal with “No”!

Source: Chuck Bauer has more than two decades of sales experience. An author, consultant and speaker, he is a member of the National Speakers Association. A man of many interests, he is an instrument rated private pilot, body builder and mountain biker. Contact Bauer by clicking here.