Report looks beyond negative cliches about NZ's 'me generation', says Val Leveson
KEY POINTS:
The baby boomers - that generation of change that brought the world the hippie movement, the Beatles, the sexual revolution and much more - is changing things again and it's going to affect the entire workforce.
Their parents, called the Silent Generation (people born between 1923 to 1945), looked forward to retirement at age 65. As they approach a similar age, New Zealand's baby boomers still see work and career as a critical part of their lives, shows recent research by the Providence Report.
Presenting a snapshot of their new Forever Young report - an investigation into baby boomers in New Zealand - at a recent EEO (Equal Employment Opportunities) Trust Diversity in Action workshop, Jude Hooson and Dr Sandy Callister say organisations needed to look beyond clichés.
While there is a common appreciation that baby boomers (those born between 1946 and 1964) have redefined the norms of every decade they have lived through, and will not age in the same way as their parents have, Hooson and Callister saw little meaningful work done to understand what this means for the second half of their lives.
The pair and Sandy Burgham are directors of the Providence Report, a high-level strategic research company that identifies and makes sense of trends in New Zealand and looks at macro business opportunities.
The Forever Young report asks: why is it that much of the discussion on baby boomers is worryingly negative - about property collapses, poor savings and investment record; not enough to retire on; health issues?
Who is this directed at? Not baby boomers, because they're not listening.
Who thinks they will stand aside? Not them.
Why do we still project a growth in retirement villages or expect a labour shortage brought on by baby boomers "retiring", and why do we use patronising terms such as seniors or matures when it is understood that they dislike these terms?
In their presentation, Hooson and Callister highlighted a quote from a 1966 issue of Time discussing that generation who were 25 years old and under - the generation we know as baby boomers when they were young. "Never have the young been so assertive or articulate, so well educated or so worldly," it said. "Science and the knowledge explosion have armed him with more tools to choose his life pattern than he can always use: physical and intellectual mobility, personal and financial opportunity, a vista of accelerating change in every direction."
They were change agents then, and are still.
Hooson says: "You often hear baby boomers criticised for their lack of planning. The 'me generation', as they have been labelled, is seen to be self-obsessed and demanding of instant gratification.
"One of the insights from our Forever Young report is that this generation has a horizontal, rather than vertical, perspective of time. With the power of their numbers, they swim in the current and are predominantly interested in what's happening in the current - not what's happening further upstream.
"We found they were absorbed with extracting the most out of life in the present and the extent of their thinking about the future, in terms of what they need to do in the present, to make their futures open-ended."
Before this generation, life was more predictable as it was full of duty and defined life stages, but the report says baby boomers are comfortable with life being more circular - a series of loops where new qualifications, new careers, new marriages, new family structures and new geographic locations are all possible throughout a flexible life embracing multiple spheres of interest.
"Baby boomers see life more as a portfolio of chapters, so they are not looking at the next phase of their life as 'retirement', but a new chapter," says Hooson. "The question they are asking is, 'How do I set up the next phase of my life?' They see themselves as more open to seize the opportunities that life tosses you.
There appears to be an aversion to not only the concept, but the very word 'retirement'. One of the baby boomers interviewed said, 'Retirement? I don't even know what that means!"'
Predictions have been made of a world labour shortage with baby boomers approaching retirement age, but the report challenges that hypothesis - particularly in the current economic climate.
"There are a number of reasons why we think baby boomers will continue to work well beyond 65. In a very practical sense many will have to continue working, their life expectancy has increased, the cost of living has increased, savings rates have plummeted and the current global economic crisis has probably put a dent in what savings they may have had.
"But for many baby boomers work is also a pleasure, not a chore. Their work is their hobby and a life of full-time leisure is simply not aspirational to them. Their view is that there is nothing more satisfying in life than to be kept busy doing what you love. In New Zealand, many own their own businesses, so work is deeply entwined with life and that is not seen as something negative," Hooson says.
The Providence Report is encouraging their clients (boards and senior executive teams) to think that retirement is an outdated concept. "This chapter of baby boomers lives will be different - work might be project-based; they may gain new qualifications and start second careers; they may choose to work in new geographic locations aligned to where their children are working or studying; they may combine work with philanthropic causes. They are thinking about how to use their affluence and education to make a difference; to set up, and pass on - a questioning of their posterity."
Factors outside baby boomers' control like corporate restructuring, downsizing and flat structures can result in fewer opportunities for progress so the challenge is to re-energise and re-engage baby boomers.
"Our clients are currently talking about the need to build cross-generational communities within their organisations and to transfer and leverage tacit knowledge from senior to middle managers.
"There aren't necessarily the big challenges for these staff higher up the hierarchy, so it is about a whole raft of different strategies and programmes that offer breadth and depth in middle roles, fresh assignments or exchanges, sabbaticals, community service or the ability to on and off ramp," says Hooson.
Many have talked about trading some of their current success for greater significance in their lives and work - they're considering their legacy - even it if means doing something altogether different.
"So we are saying to our clients: don't think retirement, think of a 'loosening up' of one's schedule. It's about continuing to live a dynamic life and being networked. As one of our baby boomers said, 'I will always be active. I am a Type A person. I like to think that in the future I might have more flexibility, but I don't think of myself as stopping, I think more of a 'loosening up' of my schedule," Hooson says.
Retirement has traditionally been seen to be a time of slowing down. A time of unhurried ease.
But this report shows baby boomers are taking stock of their lives and not waiting to retire to do
the things they want to accomplish in life. They are acting on, and adding to their to-do list now. They appear not to be slowing down - if anything, they are accelerating.
