Skills Gap and Changing Retirement Date
by Lois MelbourneWhile attending the SHRM Strategy Conference in Palm Springs last week I saw a couple of recurring themes. One theme was the huge skills gap that employees have to close before they become leaders, especially senior leaders. The other was the fact that the latest financial crises is moving out the target retirement date for many people as their investment portfolios are ripped up on Wall Street.
First, the skills gap. Participants pointed to many reasons for this gap. Some thought it was largely the demographics changes of the workforce. We have more younger workers in than experienced employees. Others clearly blamed it on generational issues. I raised a different point that I believe is a strong reason: we don’t have the manpower to staff our hierarchies.
How much of this gap, as we have attempted to create very lean organizations, results from stripping out layers of the org chart often called middle managers? Early management positions were the development grounds for senior leaders. This is where people received the experience they needed to make the ever increasingly complex decisions for the business. This is also where we were able to test leaders to see if they had the right stuff to move up in the organization.
Now we often remove the early management positions in the name of cost efficiencies. We give more responsibility to the individual workers, without giving them the authority of management or even the accountability. This is often called empowerment. This empowerment shouldn’t go away; it allows employees to grow. But without adding the accountability and budget responsibility we create a gap of business acumen and miss the chance to develop these individuals.
I don’t believe that every department needs to be deep with management. I do believe that many organizations have abdicated management decision making and analysis to consulting firms, and thus never threw their people into the trenches to learn the strategy of the game.
Second, the changing retirement date for employees, a topic requiring our full attention. I am currently collecting stories from anyone willing to share. How are you providing new types of employee arrangements to address the engagement of our workforce returning from retirement, not interested in retirement, or needing a change for semi-retirement? More, with your help, about this later.
Cheers,
Lois
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