Creating conversations
Within the Future of Work research consortium, we’re starting up some really interesting conversations about the challenges and opportunities facing companies.
Here is an extract from the debate on the Ageing Society – why not take up the conversation in your own organisations? We are finding some of these topics extremely useful as a talking point within the HR department, as well as at board level – if you come up with any interesting conclusions, feel free to email Tina on tina@hotspotsmovement.com so we can share them in next month’s newsletter!
The main trend/change we encounter within the major trend demography is the ageing society. It will change our setup as society completely, as a large group of people will be in the age group "retiree". In Switzerland, the value of unpaid work is EUR 162 Billion - an increasing part is carried out by people above the age of 65.
Yves
The 'baby boomers' are a crucial part of the story for the future. They will live longer, expect to work longer and want to be part of the action. And its not just a western phenomena. I'm in Singapore right now and in two of the companies I am teaching more than 40% of the workforce are over 60. Creating a place where baby boomers want to continue to contribute will be crucial. The US - with its discrimination laws have been quicker than Europe at doing this. In Singapore, children are required to pay their parents when they look after their family.
Lynda Gratton
This is so different from India. There you have so many grandparents taking care of the kids in India but you don't have the concept of paying them for your services. Everyone wants to move to big cities and the nuclear family is the focus.
Nupur
Here's a brief piece on how BMW is planning to tackle the problem of an ageing workforce: http://tinyurl.com/BMWorkers.
Max
Our age profile at the moment differs from one business / country to the next and as such its very difficult to focus the 'collective' mind on what will be happening over the next few years and the challenges that may bring.
Kerry
In one of our European countries we have a very strong Baby Boomer population. We have created a programme to ensure they feel valued which leverages their experiences too. It is a programme built around them being coaches/mentors to the Gen Y-ers.
Caroline
Great conversation - two really interesting themes coming out - one about the ageing workforce - and the other about the societal trends around families and fragmentation.
Lynda Gratton
In India, our parents’ generation brought up their kids on their own and the reason why they could manage this was because most of the females were not working and therefore could take out time for their kids. But if we see the trend now, the new generation is very dependent on their parents once they have kids because most of the couples are working and they need somebody to take care of their kids when they are out for work. Thus we see a slight shift from nuclear family concept to joint family concept.
Swati
I think there's an intriguing possibility that our ageing society will in fact provide tremendous economic advantage. We have never before experienced a period in which a large number of people had a significant amount of healthy, non-child-rearing time. Boomers will be the first generation to have an extended period of healthy life after their children are grown. We have no idea how they will choose to invest the discretionary energy this condition will unleash. Some will do charitable work, some artistic. I believe many will create economic value, perhaps through entrepreneurship or other forms of work. The dire economic predictions of the impact of an aging society are predicated on the assumption that Boomers will do nothing productive -- an unlikely scenario, in my view.
Tamara Erickson
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