The Time for Workforce Planning for the Economic Upturn is Now!

Posted on | January 12, 2010 |

Ten years from now about 80% of the native born US workforce will be over 50. Here’s the problem—when these workers retire there won’t be nearly enough young people entering the workforce to take their place. It is just a demographic fact. The problem won’t just be lack of bodies—it will be the lack of skills, knowledge, and experience that walk out the door every time someone retires.

This takes time and money to replace and in the mean time we are at risk of loosing our competitive advantage overseas to the BRICK economies (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and Korea). As hard as it is to envision, given our current economic climate, organizations need to start thinking seriously about training and retaining younger workers and gaining the continued commitment of older workers. They can do this by creating a more flexible attraction and retention programs and approaches to retirement that allows people to continue to contribute well into their sixties and seventies. Putting in longer term workforce planning strategies now could provide a real competitive edge when the upturn comes.

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3 Responses to “The Time for Workforce Planning for the Economic Upturn is Now!”

Jennifer Lancey
January 12th, 2010 @ 8:22 am

Thanks for posting the article, was certainly a great read!
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January 13th, 2010 @ 11:25 pm

[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by dailyhrtips and Orca Eyes, Kenexa HR Institute. Kenexa HR Institute said: Make sure your workforce planning is both in place and robust. http://bit.ly/7RD56Z [...]
Jane Ryan
January 14th, 2010 @ 3:04 pm

Thank you for providing this insightful blog. As HR professionals we have a responsibility to not only stay abreast of workforce and economic implications facing us be we also have to seek and find best solutions to address these changes and challenges that our organizations face.

I would like to share with you a hot topic that hits this talent shortage issue head on and that is do we have the right assessment tools and resources to assess the critical and creative thinking skills necessary to compete in a global world and do we have the best approach to capture and transfer knowledge from those retiring to those workers coming onboard?

As an HR professional and consultant I have many thoughts surrounding this and would like to open an exchange to discuss this significant topic.