Incentive - June 2008 - (Page 45)

Managing Smarter “Creating People Advantage: How to Address HR Challenges Worldwide Through 2015,” a 2008 report culled from interviews with global senior executives, offers a glimpse at how HR is managing changing demographics. Among the findings: • Just over 30 percent of U.S. respondents say their companies now train employees to respond to generational differences in the workplace; more than half say their companies will be doing this by 2015. • Nearly a quarter of respondents say their companies have changed health and safety policies to reflect the aging workforce; nearly half say those changes will take place at their companies in the near future. • A quarter of the U.S. respondents say their companies now offer employment options to attract or retain semi-retired or retired workers. About 65 percent say their companies will in the near future. Source: The Boston Consulting Group, the World Federation of Personnel Management Associations and the Society for Human Resource Management. Generation Motivation “It is really important for the planner to understand their client base, even within the different generations. For example, there is a large percentage of Generation X who are married with children, and a larger portion that are not. There are different sets of needs, wants and expectations even within the same group.” —Anne Hamilton, vice president of resort sales and services for the Walt Disney World Resort they were told, and that the older experienced people who had been around for a while pretty much thought the system would take care of them,” he says. “People knew where they stood. The corporate ladder was organized by seniority. But things are different now.” Tulgan, who helps organizations such as ESPN, Navy Federal Credit Union, Novo Nordisk Inc. and Raytheon Company better understand young people in the workplace, points to three major forces that are currently impacting the labor market. The first is what he refers to as the numbers problem—essentially the significant difference in attitudes and behaviors among the employee population. “On one end of the spectrum, the workforce is getting older, the other end is younger. The middle is shrinking. So you have this age bubble and youth bubble, and a middle gap, which creates a whole lot of issues,” he says. “The pressure is on the organization to be more concerned with knowledge transfer, and flexible retention and employment options such as telecommuting.” Problem number two has to do with the breakdown of the old-fashioned seniority system. Without it, organizations are struggling to establish authority. “How can managers and people who are experienced yield authority, when no one buys into the seniority system anymore?” Tulgan asks. “It really is harder for managers to deal with the everyday.” The rapid rate of transformation creates another demographic dilemma. “We are living through the most changes in our economy, society, culture and workplace since the Industrial Revolution,” says Tulgan. “The younger, less experienced people are more in sync with where things are going with social networking, Wikis and other technology. The irony is that older generations are starting to think more like free agents, adapting new technology and attitudes, saying ‘I want to do some of that stuff, too. Maybe I’ll ask if I can bring my dog to work and about not working on Thursday.’ ” SPECIAL SECTION JUNE 2008 45

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Incentive - June 2008

Incentive - June 2008 Contents Editor’s Note In The News Cover Story: Seventh Annual Industry Roundtable Incentive Interview Case Study Soft Incentives Empowerment and Engagement The Incentive Career Incentive Primer Travel News: Where To Go and What To Do The Cook Islands Field Report: Bermuda Potentials: Here and Now 50 Top Motivators: The Best of the Best Electronics: High-end Audio Equipment Gift Cards: Should One Be Enough? Advertiser Index Off The Cuff

Incentive - June 2008

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