Less-is-more Blog by Pierre Khawand

Baby Boomers at work: Elderly care, healthcare, retirement, knowledge transfer, and cross generational issues

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The setting was our weekly Lunch & Learn Webinars, the topic was "Generations in the Workplace: Baby Boomers in Action", and our guest speaker was Peggy Wolf, who in addition to being a Baby Boomer herself, is also Senior Manager of Communications for the Services Division of Cisco Systems, and has been focusing for the past 3 years on Cisco's inclusion and diversity initiatives, and led the creation of a Multicultural, Multigenerational Toolkit for Cisco worldwide. 

The discussion covered a variety of topics and didn't stop at Baby Boomers, but got into cross generational issues. I enjoyed talking to Peggy and hearing her insights on this timely topic. Here are some extracts from Peggy's talk and stay tuned for the full recording of the interview to be posted at the "Accomplishing more with less" group on Facebook soon:

• First: Baby Boomers have a whole new range of issues to deal with, more so than other generations, including aging parents that need care, own health issues that they need to mange, and therefore the additional need for flexibility and balance.
   
• Second: Baby Boomers hold valuable knowledge and experience (Intellectual Property as Peggy called it) that need to be retained as this generation gets ready to retire. This brought up the bigger issue of what retirement looks like for Baby Boomers and which according to Peggy seems to have taken a whole new meaning. Retirement is no longer a clear cut transition but potentially a gradual and flexible hybrid approach which makes room for continued significant contributions to work related activities.
   
• Third: Having the different generations in the workplace together presents some unique challenges and opportunities, especially with Baby Boomers and Gen Y who represent the largest percentages of the workforce, and have very different work styles and approaches--and a lot to learn from each other.

Let us hear your comments about Baby Boomers in the workplace below! And hope you join us in future lunch & learn webinars including the panel where we hope to have Peggy (Baby Boomer), Jenny Blake (Gen Y), and Adam Christensen (Gen X), join a cross-generational panel discussion.

Additional Resources

• The e-mail and social media survey (including how generations deal with e-mail and social media)
• Gen Y in Action by Jenny Blake (recording available on the "Accomplishing more with less" group on Facebook)
• Gen X in Action by Adam Christensen (recording also available at the "Accomplishing more with less" group on Facebook)
• Upcoming Lunch & Learn webinar "Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn: The New Inbox in Action (Part 2)"
• Download Peggy's slides