In my last post I noted that the AARP ‘Best Employers for Workers Over 50′ program was more than an awards show (see above). AARP has taken the inputs of the applicants and turned them into a ‘best practices’ model for employers that wake up and realize that keeping Boomers in the work force is going to be a key strategic initiative over the next few decades.

The following morning, Molly Selvin reported in the LATimes (link) that Ernst & Young has updated their work on the Aging U.S. Workforce with the 2007 version of that study (link). This is another important study that should provide an additional alert to wake up those managers who are aware but not taking action.

 In fact, E&Y reports an incredible increase in the percent of HR executives that said “retaining key employees to maintain intellectual capital was the human capital issue of most concern” (from 38% in 2006 to 68% in 2007)! Efforts to increase awareness are obviously beginning to get some results.

A new finding (to me, at least) was that the focus in the strategic planning to address the aging workforce issue should be in middle management. This is problematic when “41% of the companies responding say that middle management will be the level most affected by the talent gap, yet 75 percent are focused on monitoring succession at the senior management level.” HR professionals clearly need to refocus their efforts.

Ernst & Young has several key recommendations for those HR managers who decide to tackle this issue. Combine their analysis with the ‘best practices’ noted from the AARP  Best Employers for Workers Over 50 program, and earlier work from The Conference Board and the General Accountability Office, and there is a substantial body of material that can provide significant guidance to those HR professionals who decide to take action in this important area.

Hopefully, we will start to see  a progression from increased awareness to increased action.

I recently attended the AARP ‘Best Employers for Workers over 50′ awards dinner. This was the seventh annual event, meaning that AARP started this commendable effort well before most people were aware that retention of Boomer workers was going to be a critical need for the U.S. economy.

The fifty employers receiving awards (link) certainly deserve the commendations. They are definitely in the vanguard, often because of problems with retaining certain classes of employees.

Award shows are often superficial and fleeting. This one is neither. Companies put a lot of work into their submissions, and the accumulation of these submissions is providing a very valuable list of ‘best practices’ in the area of making the workplace a positive environment for older workers, and therefore helping to retain them. In 2004 AARP had Mercer Human Resource Consulting analyze the best practices in a report (link).

AARP continues to analyze the submissions and has lists of best practices on subjects like ‘Retention’ (link) and ‘Workforce Trends’ (link).

Surveys are showing that most employers are not preparing for the forthcoming shortages of employees. Fortunately for them, when they do wake up and realize they are in trouble, the best practices developed by AARP will give them a badly needed head start in getting up to speed.