GLOBE - Growth.Leadership.Organisation.Business.Education 29 4
Strategic Implications of Retirement of the Baby Boomer Generation Workforce
INTRODUCTION
The aging Baby Boomer generation workforce in the US is retiring at a rapid pace. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the labor projection for the United States through 2022 indicated a decrease in employment rates in the workforce, primarily due to the aging Baby Boomer population (Toossi, 2012). Knowledge-intensive functions, such as Information Systems (IS) are among the most likely to be affected, as a high proportion of the staff are employees who exchange their knowledge with others in the organization (Fu, 2015). The knowledge loss of an organization may also negatively affect client trust and lead to loss of revenue.
BACKGROUND
The recognition of the Baby Boomer knowledge loss and the accompanying spectrum of challenges related to retaining that knowledge originated from the seminal work on lost knowledge by DeLong (2004). The economic downturn brought by the recession from 2007 resulted in the increase of the employment periods of members of the Baby Boomer generation (Burtless & Bosworth, 2013). During this period, the lost knowledge phenomenon was less of a problem because this group continued to work, despite being eligible for retirement (MartÃn-de Castro, 2015).
By Nithyanandam Mathiyazhagan