Pub. 3 2013 Issue 1

18 www.azbankers.org I T HAS ALWAYS BEEN POSSIBLE TO FIND PLENTY OF YOUNG PEOPLE IN THE WORKPLACE. TODAY, HOWEVER, PEOPLE LIVE LONGER AND OFTEN either cannot afford to retire, or are so valuable that their employers persuade them to continue working. Many man- agers even find themselves trying to hire highly skilled retired people, because those who are best qualified for a job are in such short supply. Companies that lose experienced workers find that the cost of finding, hiring, and training new employees is a steep one: it can add as much as 50 to 150 percent to an annual salary. As the baby boomer generation is getting older, the workplace is getting more diverse with respect to age. Yes, there are still lots of young people… but not as many as there once were. And (circumstance permitting), some 80 percent of all baby boomers plan to work, part-time or full- time, during their retirement years. For the first time, a young employee born as recently as 1992 or later may be working right next to someone who is 70 or older. In 2014, some experts es- timate that 32 percent of all employees will be over the age of 50. Understanding the players Employers right now may have employees from each of the following generations: • The World War II generation, or those born before 1946. It’s been 67 years since 1945, so most of the people in this generation were just children when the war ended; despite that, however, the war was the central fact of their early years. They grew up with an age-based hierarchy, where age equaled re- sponsibility and status. In 2011, 7 million of them were still working. They were shaped by radio broad- casting. • The baby boom generation, from 1946 through 1964. This is the gen- eration born after the end of World War II, which was a time of great promise and also great fear. These people grew up thinking about the Cold War and the possibility of nuclear destruction; they remember Richard Nixon as president, and Watergate as the major scandal of the day. Many of them remember watching Neil Armstrong as he first set foot on the moon. The number of those working was 60 million in 2011. They were shaped by televi- sion. • Generation X, from 1965 to 1980. The oldest of these people probably don’t remember the end of Viet- nam; the youngest ones missed the Carter years but probably remember President Reagan from their child- hoods. In 2011, there were 51 million of them, and their world view was deeply influenced by the computer. • The millennial generation, from 1980 to 2000. Many from this gen- eration are essentially the children of the baby boom generation. In 2006, there were 22 million of them working; by 2011, that number had increased to 40 million. This is the generation that has grown up being deeply influenced by the Internet. Of course, one of the biggest prob- lems of looking at age differences instead of cultural differences is the 8PSLQMBDF %FNPHSBQIJDT By SUSAN MORGAN , The NewsLINK Group, LLC