There appears to be a marked difference on how small and large companies deal with the aging U.S. workforce. And according to one survey, small businesses appear to be ahead of the curve when planning for this major demographic shift.
In a survey of 404 small business owners, 28% percent of the respondents reported that they had developed plans and strategies to transfer the knowledge and skills of their older and more experienced workers to younger employees.
NAPEO officials say the survey results are not surprising considering the impact that losing experienced talent has on small businesses, which they identified as having fewer than 500 employees.
Other research shows that small businesses are outpacing their larger counterparts in planning for the age-based demographic shift. Slightly less than 25 percent of larger-sized employers (those with more than 2,500 employees) are making any effort to transfer knowledge from soon-to-retired employees to younger workers, according to a report released in November 2007 by the global consulting and training firm Novations Group.
Surprisingly, the Novations research revealed that only 4 percent of the respondents had adopted any formal procedures for transferring the knowledge and skills of older workers.
Research: Small Firms Best at Handling Aging Workforce
Posted by
suzyQ under Human Resources
From http://www.shrm.org 5859 days ago
Made Hot by: on April 9, 2008 3:17 am
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Comments
5756 days ago
I firmly believe that in Australia we need to re-define what the average daily and weekly job looks like and how it is remunerated so that we hold onto older workers.
Research firm, Mercer, says that by the year 2012 the amount of workers in the Australian labour force aged 55+ will increase by 14 per cent while the amount of workers aged 25-54 will increase by only 5 per cent.
In industries where work is increasingly based on knowledge-creation, the focus needs to be on the workplace as a key arena for encouraging ‘lifelong learning’ as part of work.
Retaining and retraining older workers will save recruiting costs, maintain institutional memory and technical knowledge and give a higher return on investment in training.