London Daily News

The Grey Resignation: Baby Boomers Are Reshaping Work For Future Generations

The age of exit from the labour market is lower today than it was in the 1950s. The ‘Silver Tsunami’ of seasoned talent leaving the workforce has been steadily progressing for about 30 years, but like everything else, COVID changed its trajectory. Pre-pandemic, many older workers had already planned to retire or move to a less demanding job because of their age. COVID simply accelerated their plans. An already aging workforce saw an acceleration towards retirement to avoid health-related issues.

Older workers were more severely impacted by COVID in the early stages of the pandemic – especially in industries where working from home was not an option, such as field service engineers and technicians, who install, maintain and service equipment assets.

Because of the nature of their work, field service technicians were obliged to work through the most dangerous months of the pandemic to keep critical assets running. It’s a profession that’s been particularly affected, especially in the industrial and manufacturing industries where field service technicians tend to be older than workers in other sectors.

The problem for organisations isn’t just looming retirement of these key workers. There’s a lack of new candidates interested in replacing them. Millennials typically want to innovate and make a difference rather than maintain what’s already been built, and not as interested in “getting their hands dirty.”

Every industry has lost workers and valuable knowledge due to retirement – the only difference is the varying degrees. The four industries with the largest number of 50+ workers – health, retail, education, and manufacturing – account for approximately half (47%) of all 50+ workers in the UK economy. Likewise, in the construction industry, the total of workers over 60 has increased more than any other age group, while the biggest reduction is in the total of workers under 30.

Of course, the ageing workforce isn’t a surprise. Employers have known it’s coming for years now, but recruitment and knowledge transfer hasn’t kept pace, and now COVID amplified the problem.

The issue is further compounded by our global consumption. Businesses have had to adapt to service and support our industrial demand for uptime and outcomes. A ServiceMax / Vanson Bourne study found that Generation Z, those born between the mid-1990s to the mid-2000s, will be the last generation to remember a product-based economy as we continue to move to outcome-based contracts and business models.

Whilst industries are using AI, field service management and other technologies to capture and automate this type of knowledge before it walks out the door, there are some human insights that simply can’t be automated. Technology alone isn’t the answer.

Humans are critical in decision-making, especially in manufacturing and service. In a service context, AI will play a role in the near future to help categorise and classify issues, based on data ingestion and analysis, to assist and direct human engineers. Over time, when data collection is much more seamless, we still see the role of AI and advanced position as sifting through vast quantities of contextual information to place the humans in the right position.

But it’s not all bad news. Baby Boomers are actually reshaping the world of work, right before our eyes. They’re the first generation to work at older ages en masse with many choosing to work part-time with the right flexibility. This has the potential to transform traditional working environments, training and attitudes into something new that caters for older workers and paves the way for generations of older workers to come.

Older workers who choose to stay on past retirement age are typically motivated by different experiences than their younger colleagues. They are not as interested in money or career advancement, but rather look for gratification on the job and opportunities that allow them to “pay it forward” by passing on their knowledge to the next generation of workers.

Within field services, more senior workers tend to have stronger technical and “hands on” skills, while younger workers tend to be stronger on the “adaptive” skills, such as analytical thinking and innovation and creativity. Younger workers also have a greater understanding and expectation of technology which makes it easier to implement digital tools and solutions. Likewise, some more experienced workers – who are not at retirement age – are also willing to take on part-time or project-related opportunities as opposed to full-time commitments as they seek more flexibility and freedom, enabling more ‘job sharing’ opportunities for older workers.

By combining the technical skills of the older generation of technicians and their desire to pass on their knowledge to younger workers, with the creativity, resilience and willingness to learn of younger generations, companies can create a powerful workforce. The grey resignation doesn’t need to spell disaster for industry.

Sumair Dutta is senior director of customer and market insights at ServiceMax.

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