I am old, but still around! (assignment 3)

Here is a link to the article by Bill Glauber: Seniors at senior level; which basically talks about exactly that, i.e. how seniors are retaining their mark in business. Below is an extract from the article which I think sums it well:

Demographics and the needs of both businesses and workers will drive a trend to retain experiences bosses, according to Tamara J. Erickson of the Concours Group, an advisory services firm. By 2030, nearly 20 percent of the US population is projected to be 65 and older.

Older workers will want to work and remain active, and businesses will need seniors to fill what Erickson said will be looming shortage in skills and talents in the American workplace.

“It’s going to be basically what the baby boomers want, the baby boomers will get,” she said. “They’re not a generation of people who want to lie around in hammock. They’re going to find a way to stay active as they move into the post-60 years.”

Being a business strategy student I will analyze this from Jay B. Barney’s VIRO framework. The question of value, according to the framework relates to a resource(s) (which in this case are senior employees) that should help the firm reduce its costs or increase its revenue. According to me, had these seniors not been around then the company would have to incur the costs of hiring their replacements, training them, and waiting for the learning curve effects to kick in, along with other costs. However, with their knowledge and know-how of the industry these senior managers or workers serve as a critical part of value network of a firm (according to Hamel’s framework, a firm’s value network includes suppliers, partners and coalitions, each of which may have established an understanding and strong relationship with these senior managers or workers that a replacement might not know), are a great starting point for a new employee to learn from (learning from the lessons they made, who are their valuable customers and suppliers, the norms of the industry, etc) which in turn helps them reap the learning curve effects very soon, and in some cases are irreplaceable thereby making it very costly for the company to lose them. Finally, answering last part of question of value, seniors part of the sales team might have maintained a strong relationship with customers which in certain cases cannot be maintained by new employees.

The second question of Barney’s framework is question of rareness. According to me, more information at a firm’s level is needed to answer it. The third question is: question of imitation. Imitation in this case would be for competitors to retain their senior workers or managers if one company does so. In a way imitation would be possible; anyone can retain their old employees. But then the question to ask is: what do they have to offer to their company? If there is unique historical information possessed by one firm’s senior employee along with key threads of social complexity thereby giving their firm an edge over their competitors, then I believe that imitation would not be possible. The last question of the framework is, question of organization, for which more information is needed to come to an answer.

To end this post I would take another quote from Bill Glauber’s article, of George Dalton who said, “I really don’t work. If I had to work, I’d quit.” According to me this quote says it all about the attitude of baby boomers.

Ken Blanchard agrees with George Dalton in his book The Heart of Leader when he says: Choose work you love and you will never have to work a day in your life.

Barney Hamel Value Network