企業(yè)需注重留住中老年員工

The obsession with how to manage millennials is obscuring another potentially larger problem: how to manage their parents. It is reassuring, then, that a group of UK businesses, including Barclays, Boots, Aviva and the Co-op, have started to measure the size of the skills gap that they could fall into as many more people retire from the workforce than join it.

對如何管理千禧一代這個問題的糾結(jié)，掩蓋了另一個可能更大的問題：如何管理千禧一代的父母。就此而言，令人寬慰的是，包括巴克萊(Barclays)、Boots、英杰華(Aviva)、合作社集團(the Co-op)在內(nèi)的多家英國企業(yè)，已開始衡量他們可能面臨的技能缺口，因為退休的人數(shù)大大多于加入員工隊伍的人數(shù)。

On Tuesday, these companies and others set a target of increasing the number of over-fifties they employ by 12 per cent by 2022. As in other areas where business awakes to its social responsibility — from staff wellbeing (healthy workers are more productive) to environmental policy (clean factories are more efficient) — an underlying self-interest is driving the concern. Even if automation can cover some of the looming skills deficit, businesses that do not learn how to attract and manage older workers will lose out. They lose access to a valuable pool of experience and lack inside knowledge about how to handle their older customers.

不久前，包括上述企業(yè)在內(nèi)的一些企業(yè)確立了一個目標：到2022年，將50歲以上雇員的人數(shù)增加12%。就像在其他事情上——從員工健康(健康的勞動者工作更有成效)到環(huán)境政策(清潔的工廠更有效率)——一樣，企業(yè)意識到自身的社會責任，往往是受到根本層面自身利益的驅(qū)動。即便自動化可以部分彌補將要來臨的技能缺口，如果不學會如何吸引和管理年紀較大的員工，企業(yè)就會吃虧。它們無法讓一大群有價值、經(jīng)驗豐富的勞動者為自己效力，也不懂得如何搞定那些年級較大的客戶。

Lynda Gratton and Andrew Scott, authors of The 100-Year Life , about the challenges and opportunities presented by increasing longevity, found that, with few exceptions, most companies were doing very little to tackle the problem. “Most have kept with the traditions of recruitment and development that were created more than 50 years ago,” they write.

《百歲人生》(The 100-Year Life)論述預期壽命延長帶來的挑戰(zhàn)與機會，該書作者琳達•格拉頓(Lynda Gratton)和安德魯•斯科特(Andrew Scott)發(fā)現(xiàn)，除少數(shù)企業(yè)之外，多數(shù)企業(yè)都沒有采取多少行動來解決這個問題。“多數(shù)企業(yè)都在延續(xù)創(chuàng)建于50多年前的招聘和發(fā)展傳統(tǒng)，”他們寫道。

To profit from the wisdom and experience offered by older workers — and accommodate their needs — companies will have to develop two skills that they are traditionally quite poor at: flexibility and a willingness to deal with complexity.

要獲益于年紀較大員工的智慧和經(jīng)驗、并照顧他們的需求，企業(yè)得在它們一向不擅長的兩項技巧上有所長進：靈活性以及處理復雜性的意愿。

In parallel with the mass-production techniques that underpinned the growth of big business in the 20th century came a standardisation of worker development that served large companies well for decades. In this three-stage life, age was a rough, but reasonable proxy for employee needs. Companies could predict that sometime in their sixties, workers would retire, their departure lubricated by generous pension arrangements.

員工發(fā)展的標準化，與支撐了20世紀大企業(yè)增長的大規(guī)模生產(chǎn)方法一同誕生，并在數(shù)十年時間里較好滿足了大企業(yè)的需求。在這種三階段人生中，年齡粗略但合理地代表了員工的需求。企業(yè)可以預測到，員工在60多歲的時候會退休，優(yōu)厚的退休金安排讓他們高高興興地離開。

But staff currently in the workforce — and many older workers who would be willing and able to rejoin it — are increasingly expecting a multi-stage life, where education, work and retirement no longer follow a strictly linear course. Simultaneously, the corporate retirement benefits that once eased the transition to old age have disappeared. Companies, write Ms Gratton and Mr Scott, “will increasingly see offering more diverse employment policies as a major strategic advantage, especially in high-value-added industries where human capital plays a crucial role”.

但目前在職的員工、以及很多愿意也能夠歸隊的年紀較大的勞動者，日益期待的是一種多階段人生——教育、工作和退休不再嚴格遵循一條線性的路徑。與此同時，一度讓人們能安然步入晚年的公司退休福利已經(jīng)沒有了。格拉頓和斯科特寫道，企業(yè)“將日益把提供更加多元化的雇傭政策視為一項重大戰(zhàn)略優(yōu)勢，特別是在人力資本發(fā)揮關(guān)鍵作用的高附加值行業(yè)”。

Some workers — particularly those in senior roles — will also have to accept that if they are to continue in work, their status will change. The value of part-time and on-demand contributions to the company should increase, while the simplistic idea that people achieve “seniority” through continuous service, followed by abrupt departure, breaks down. Measurement and targets, in other words, are just a start.

一些勞動者(尤其是職位較高者)也將不得不接受這樣一個現(xiàn)實：如果他們要繼續(xù)工作，他們的地位會改變。兼職和隨叫隨到式服務對企業(yè)的價值應該會增加，而以下這種簡單化的想法會破滅：員工通過長期工齡獲得“資深”地位、隨后突然離開。換句話說，衡量標準和目標只是一個開始。