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Toronto Canada USA Leading Baby Boomer Generation team building

Baby Boomers:  born mid-1940s to mid-1960s

Boomers are the first generation to take care of their parents longer than their parents took care of them.

 Over 78 million Americans were born between the mid-1940s and mid-1960s, the years that have come to define the demographic anomaly known as the Baby Boom, the most fertile period in U.S. history.  Postwar prosperity had much to do with it, as did faith in the future and an ideology of reproduction that pushed women out of the wartime workforce and into motherhood.

It was the largest generation ever, accounting for about a third of the U.S.  population by the 1980s.  And Baby Boomers made their presence felt: 15 million homes built in the 1950s; 50,000 classrooms created in 1952 alone; 1.5 billion cans of baby food sold in 1953.  As empty nesters, Boomers have more money to spend as the median income for Boomers bracket is $47,300 annually.   

The number of couples without children between the age of 45 and 60 will increase from 8 million in 1980 to 16 millions in the year 2010.  

This was the first generation to live with a fear of no tomorrow, with the knowledge that the entire world could be annihilated by The Bomb.  A possibility reinforced every time they had to crouch under their desks at school or in bomb shelters at home.  

However, in Canada, the Baby Boom is usually defined as the generation born from 1947 to mid-1960s.  Canadian service personnel were repatriated later than the Americans, and Canada's birth rate did not start to rise until 1947.  Baby boomers are the largest single age group in Canada, at 7 million (31%), according to Statistics Canada.  Within the next 10 years, 2.6 million of them will be 50 to 60 years old. 

To attract Baby Boomers, companies need to become age-friendly – giving employees opportunities to contribute to society, providing a flexible workplace that balances work and retirement and organizational policies that empowering Baby Boomers.

In a widely cited 2002 paper entitled “Will there really be a labour shortage”, professor Peter Cappelli, of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, argues forcefully that it won’t happen, primarily because baby boomers who might have retired at 60 or 65 under normal conditions, will be persuaded to stay in the workforce, en masse, due to the opportunities and rewards available because of demand. Studies by the AARP support his theory.  In surveys involving thousands of baby boomers conducted in 1998 and 2004, 80 per cent and 79 per cent respectively said that they “plan to work in some capacity during their retirement years”.

Convincing older workers that they need to remain productive into their 60s, 70s and even 80s wouldn’t seem to be the challenge. Rather, organizations and society in general have to get better at making older workers want to work, even if they can afford to retire.
So far, companies aren’t doing a very good job of it. Ageism is an issue, particularly in the youth-obsessed US culture.  Necessity will eventually eliminate the problem but organizations shouldn’t wait until a crisis (sometimes referred to as Grey2K) arises to start including age in their diversity strategies.

Now is the time to start implementing older-worker recruitment and retention policies like job flexibility and talking to critical employees who are nearing retirement about what it might take to keep them a few years longer. The winners in the competition for the best of the baby boomers will be the ones that start early and develop a reputation as a great place for older workers.

In North America, every 7.5 seconds, a Boomer turns 50! 

 

Some Characteristics  

At Work 

 

§       Busy “sandwich” generation 

§       Team oriented 

§       Idealistic 

§       Health and wellness 

§       Human rights activists 

§       Highly educated and affluent 

§       Competitive 

§       Success = money, title, recognition 

§       Anti rules & regulations 

 

 

Contributions 

u        Service oriented 

u        Comfortable with long-term employment 

u        Willing to “go the extra mile” 

u        Good at relationships & communication 

u        Cool-headed during a crisis 

 

Cautions 

u        Not naturally frugal 

u        Coasting into retirement 

u        Prefer high level of process 

u        Accustomed to feedback once per year, whether you need it or not 

u        Will vigorously protect Power & Turf 

 

Misconceptions About Boomers 

 

Media Myths: 

Reality: 

 

On their way out. 

Average life expectancy for today’s woman is 78.8 years; for men, 72.  Boomers will have longer, healthier work lives than any previous generation. 

 

They’ll have to grow up. 

Sales of Harley-Davidson motorcycles doubled in the early 1990s; majority of buyers were Boomers. 

 

They’ve always had it easy; they’re assured of a comfortable retirement. 

Of all generations, Boomers have the largest credit card debt.  They have an average of 20 years remaining on their mortgages. 

 

Quit learning. 

Enrollment by Boomers in adult education programs, everything from tap dancing to elementary economics, is up significantly. 

 

Workaholics. 

Have worked grueling hours for the past thirty years; now 80% agree their private life is more important than work. 

 

when a Silent collides, they think …

 

 

u        Stop talking about personal things that should be kept private. 

u        Me, me, me. 

u        Another divorce ??!! 

 

when a GenX collides, they think …

 

 

u        Are you crazy - meetings after 5? 

 

u        Moralistic and hypocritical. 

u        Always doing office politics. 

 

when a GenY collides, they think … 

 

u        Work too much. 

u        Lighten up. 

u        Stop hovering. 


 Generation Y

Generation X

Baby Boomer Generation

The Silent or Veteran Generation

 

 

 

 

 

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