QUESTION
Purpose: the purpose of this assignment is to give you the opportunity to explore a topical issue for HR managers and then to identify suitable strategies for dealing with that issue.
Task: choose one of the following questions. Write a structured essay (using appropriate headings and subheadings) in which you present your response to the question.
- 1. What are the challenges for human resource managers in terms of managing Gen Y (also referred to as Millennials)? What HR strategies and practices could organisations implement to deal with these challenges?
Support your answer with appropriate references. This may include academic articles, practitioner journal sources, demographic data or employer association/HR consultant publications.
- 2. What are the challenges for human resource managers in relation to Baby Boomers? What HR strategies and practices could organisations implement to deal with these challenges?
Support your answer with appropriate references. This may include academic articles, practitioner journal sources, demographic data or employer association/HR consultant publications.
SOLUTION
Current Scenario of Baby Boomers
Stepping into the 21st century has a major problem or challenge as large number of baby boomers will retire, which is estimated to be around 82 million according to the Census done by the Bureau of Labour Statistics (BLS) in 2000. Thus the HR managers of various organisations will have to face many challenges which are listed below.
Challenges for HR Managers in relation to Baby Boomers
Termination of long Term Employees
A huge horde expected to leave the workforce because of Baby Boomers retiring has posed a big challenge for the HR managers and the biggest challenge amongst all is how to terminate their long term employees , if need be (Whitten and Lublin, 2012). This has been a real-time case which has been analysed by Suzuki Canada where the HR managers have faced the challenge that if they retain the Baby boomers the productivity suffers and if they let them go then it proves to be very costlier for the company.
Management of Multigenerational Workforce
With the delay in retirement of Baby boomers and rapid entrance of generation Y in the workforce in the organisations, the HR managers are facing another severe challenge of difficulty in managing the multigenerational workforce (Citti, 2012). The generation gaps exist in wider range from social norms to the techniques of communications. One major difference which exists between the Baby boomers and Generation X is that the baby boomers are very competitive and they think that the workers are liable to pay their dues. On the other hand the Generation Xers are independent-minded and very questioning types (“Society for Human Resource Management, 2008).
Difficulty of Replacement
As per BLS there will be need for replacing around 24 million workers due to death or retirement by the year 2010. The organisations are expected to face a massive loss of around 50% of their executives in the form of Baby boomers in the coming 2-3 years. Since the size of the Generation X is small and they have higher rate of turnover and of late it has been noticed that they show very much transient nature. This has resulted in shrinkage of workforce pool available for replacement and the competition amongst the employees for this restricted pool (HR, 2010).
Conflict management in the workforce
It has been found that baby Boomers are very optimistic, driven and idealistic in approach. They always try to seek out the potential in people before accepting them, whether they will be able to perform according to the standards or not (Mask, 2007). This judgemental behaviour of Baby Boomers will cause conflict amongst the workforce as the other generations present in the workforce will put forth new ideas for better change (Laurel, 2005). Baby Boomers also opine that the technology acts as a big hindrance in face-to-face interaction between human beings in the organisations which is another contradictory view which HR Mangers will have to deal with (Leiber, 2010).
The Table depicted below shows that how different generations have different viewpoints regarding work and different goals they have.
Traditionalists
65-88yrs old Baby Boomer
46-64 yrs old Generation X
30-45 yrs old Generation Y
10-29 yrs old
Outlook Practical Optimistic Skeptical Hopeful
Work ethics Dedicated Driven Balanced Determined
Authority Respectful Love/Hate Unimpressed Polite
Leadership Hierarchy Consensus Competence Pull Together
Relationships Personal Sacrifice Personal Gratification Reluctant to Commit Inclusive
Turn-offs Vulgarity Political Incorrectness Cliché/ hype Promiscuity
(Laurel, 2005) (Buahene and Kovary, June 28 – July 1, 2009)
Finding competent personnel
With the retirement of Baby Boomers in bulk there is another serious challenge which is a major concern for HR Mangers and that is to find competent enough personnel to replace them.
This can be clearly analysed from the figure shown below it depicts the major challenges which the HR Managers had to face in the year 2011 and the topmost ranked problem was to find the co-workers who are competent enough to either work with Baby boomers or to replace them (Ahnlund, 2011).
However there are many more challenges which the HR Mangers will have to face due to exodus of Baby Boomers from the organisations in bulk like they will have to prioritise the development in case of professional front in the organisation. Managing the workforce in an effective manner so that the profitability for the company gets enhanced. The HR Mangers will have to work toward the retention of the existing employees because if they will take voluntary retirement then organisations will end up paying huge sum of money to them.
The HR mangers also face the challenge of improving and develop cordial and friendly work environment within the organisation. This has to be done by motivating and engaging the various mixes of employees. Along with this they have to manage the major shift of generation which will occur in the company with the major number of Baby Boomers either leaving or asked to leave the organisation.
HR Strategies and Practices for organisations to deal with these challenges
Taking a closer look at the generation of Baby Boomers the organisations and Hr Mangers can manage the diverse and continuously altering workforce in successful manner (“Society for Human Resource Management, 2008).
Since we are still in the very early stage of exodus of the baby boomers so it is the right time when the organisations can build effectual; HR strategies and can explore some better options to deal with these challenges. Some of the strategies to handle these issues which HR Managers can devise are:
Creating Incentive Plans
Since there will be dearth of qualified employees to replace the vacant positions created, the HR Managers can create effective incentive plans in order to convince them to stay within the organisation till younger replacements get trained to take their position. These incentives could be in the form of short working years for the Baby Boomers till the replacement or providing them health care coverage.
Baby Boomers are considered to be work alcoholic and many of these groups are motivated by money (Lieber, 2010). Thus a study showed results that for this generation extrinsic rewards are very vital (Twenge et al., 2010).
Baby Boomers when asked to rate form the range of seven types of rewards related to compensation rated the high-quality colleagues, recognition for their contributions and intellectually stimulating environment as their highest desires (Hewlett, Sherbin and Sumberg, 2009). Thus HR Managers can use this psyche and study to retain or handle the Baby Boomers in better manner.
Effective Knowledge Management
Along with the succession plan devised to replace the top management, the HR Managers should try to transfer the key and crucial knowledge base and the skills sets possessed by Baby Boomers in the younger workforce. The companies have to incur huge cost on ‘reinventing the wheel’, thus the HR Managers should develop proper knowledge management tools so that all the necessary information gets transferred to the coming generation.
Encourage Cross-Generational Interaction
The Hr Managers should educate the employees, but before that they should try to identify and then educate them to get adapted to these generational differences existing in the organisation. This should be done by facilitating the cross-generational interaction. On one hand the Baby Boomers can try to gather and sharpen their technological skills with the help of Generation X while the Generation X and Y can seek the necessary training and guidance form the much experienced Baby Boomers (Citti, 2012).
Messages should be aimed at particular group
The messages while recruitment should be devised in such a manner that they target specific generations and the messages in the recruitment ads should be such that it attracts the people or human resources form wide span of age groups, so that the talent pool is much diversified as per the age factor is concerned.
Do not Neglect the Baby Boomers
The Baby Boomers make the fastest growing set amongst the labour force while the age group of Generation Xers and Yers is increasing at slower pace so the HR Managers should not neglect them, because a targeted recruitment of more mature and experienced workers will give the organisations the desired competitive advantage and they will get hands on better pool of talent too (Watson, 2010).
Succession Management
Planning succession management is eth need of the hour for HR Managers as it is the fundamental element which will help the organisation in achieving success (Collins and Porras, 1997). Since the rate of failure is higher and more resources and time is needed when the HR Mangers hire an outsider it would be beneficial and profitable for the organisation to develop and properly weigh up the potential leaders after identifying them from within the organisation.
Leveraging the Generational Differences
Both the individuals and the organisation can successfully grow if they try to remain focussed on the career goals of each generation they have in the workforce as per the Maslow’s Hierarchy. This will help in developing atmosphere of values and the feeling of belongingness in the work place (Watson, 2010). If the HR Mangers will follow this value approach they would be able to motivate each generation through the activities and their outcomes which will be considered important by those people.
Bibliography
‘”Society for Human Resource Management’, The Multigenerational Workforce: Opportunity for Competitive Success (2008).
Ahnlund, A. (2011) Main challenge amongst HR Managers is finding competent personnel, 19 July, [Online], Available: http://www.jobylon.se/blog/main-challenge-amongst-hr-managers-is-finding-competent-personnel/ [23 March 2012].
Buahene, A. and Kovary, G. (June 28 – July 1, 2009) ‘Engaging a Multigenerational Workforce: The Why and How.”‘, Society For Human Resource Management (SHRM), New Orleans.
Citti, A. (2012) How to create an age-neutral workplace, 23 January, [Online], Available: http://blog.yoh.com/2012/01/how-to-create-an-age-neutral-workplace.html [22 March 2012].
Collins, J. and Porras, J. (1997) Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies.
Hewlett, S., Sherbin, L. and Sumberg, K. (2009) ‘Leadership in New World’, How Gen Y & Boomers will REshape your Agenda, pp. 71-76.
HR, T. (2010) End of the Boom: Retiring Baby Boomers and the Consequences for Your Business, [Online], Available: http://www.tandemhr.com/userfiles/file/Exit%20of%20Baby%20Boomers%20Affecting%20the%20Workplace.pdf [22 March 2012].
Laurel, D. (2005) Bridging the Generation Gap, Laurel and Associates, Ltd.
Lieber, L.D. (2010) ‘How HR Can Assist in Managing the Four Generations in Today’s Workplace’, Employment Relations Today, pp. 85-91.
Mask, D. (2007) Managing the Generation Mix in the Workplace Tips to Manage the Generation Gap, [Online], Available: [23 March 2012].
Twenge, J.M., Campbell, S.M., Hoffman, B.J. and Lance, C.E. (2010) ‘Generational Differences in Work Values: Leisure and Extrinsic Values Increasing, Social and Intrinsic Values Decreasing.’, Journal of Management, vol. 36, no. 5, pp. 1117-1142.
Watson, H.L. (2010) The Multigenrational Workforce: Strategies for Managing Four Generations, San Marcos, texas: texas State Unoiversity.
Whitten and Lublin (2012) Baby Boomer Decision likely to be echoed, 20 March, [Online], Available: http://blog.toronto-employmentlawyer.com/ [22 March 2012].
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