Are You Prepared?

The economy over the last several years has created an interesting situation in the workforce. Those who were planning to retire a few years ago saw their retirement portfolio's take a nose dive and made the decision to stay in the workforce. For companies, this meant they didn't have to worry about who their next leaders would be, so a lot of employment decisions were put on hold. For young people graduating from college, this meant no big jobs with huge salaries and certainly very little opportunity to be the bright new star coming in to save the day. Of course, I'm over-exaggerating a little here. Young people still have some opportunity but many companies immediate need to hire them really did get pushed aside and we’re seeing high numbers of unemployment in young people.

Now things are beginning to change some. Many who delayed retirement are once again looking ahead to their “free from work” futures. I would give it 3 to 5 years before our workforce is suffering from a real gap in knowledge and skills if plans are not put in place now to teach and train new leaders.

I have talked to many companies who don’t even have this on their radar to think about yet. In my mind, this is truly short-sighted thinking and will create a serious problem for those organizations that have not planned for employee retirement. So the question is, do you have a plan in place to train your new employees how to be leaders or does the knowledge and skill of your more experienced employees get lost when they leave?

It scares me to think that there is a potential gap that will mean a great deal of knowledge, skills, and understanding will be completely lost. I recently heard a story about NASA. In the 1960’s when America was working so hard to put a man on the moon, amazing advances in science and technology were made in order to make that happen. Over time, priorities shifted and putting a man on the moon wasn’t the focus of NASA. Through the years, those who were involved in that initiative eventually retired and many have now passed away. Unfortunately for NASA, there was no plan in place to capture the knowledge and advances that those scientists discovered. I’m not sure if you’re like me but I thought to myself, “Okay, there have to have been enough advances over the years that it’s not that big of a deal”. Apparently it’s a huge deal! Fast forward to today, and there is a major issue brewing. America would like to go back to the moon. The problem, no one knows how to do it anymore. Scientists have to start from scratch to figure out how to make it work. Can you imagine how much time and money would have been saved if someone would have just taken notes originally!

So here’s my point with this whole rant…if you’re not already making plans to train your future leaders, then you should be. There are some great resources out there to help employers connect with young people eager to be your next star. A great way to start is to bring a high school or college student in for a multi-year internship opportunity with your company. You get a chance to test the waters, and the student learns the ins and outs of the job. In 3-5 years, they graduate and you have a ready-made workforce with solid knowledge of your company. If you operate in Indiana there is a great resource called www.indianaintern.net that can help you connect to students and post internship opportunities for free. This really is a win-win for everyone. You get an enthusiastic young person, and the student gets knowledge and skills to be a better employee!

The moral of this story…start planning now! Don’t wait until it’s too late and your scrambling to figure out how to train your new workforce to do the things your seasoned and experienced employees were doing.