Baby Boomer Retirement: Is Your IT Department Ready?

Baby boomers make up 30 percent of the adult working population, and every month more that 250,000 of them turn 65. The consequences of baby boomer retirement have long been speculated upon and worried over, and now that the first wave is beginning to exit the work force, it is time to get serious about preparing your business.

Baby boomers occupy a significant number of senior IT positions, and as they begin to retire, it could throw your IT department into turmoil. Not only will you have a number of vacancies to deal with, the loss of leadership and intellectual capital could cripple your day-to-day operation. In order to minimize the impact, consider taking these steps.

Create an Age Profile

If you have a large IT department, you may not even realize how many of your employees are on the brink of retirement. Use personnel documents to determine all of your employee’s current ages, and then use this data to help you understand how retirement will affect you in a year, five years, and further down the road.

Create an Inventory of Available Skills

What are the specific skills present in your IT department right now, and how many will disappear when top employees begin to retire? When you explicitly understand which IT skills your business relies on, and which ones you will be deficient in, it can help guide your recruitment and retraining efforts.

Identify Consulting Options

It is expected that many baby boomers with specialized skills will move into consulting roles rather than fully retiring. You can help manage the evolution of your IT department and economically fill in the gaps by turning to consultants in the short term. Determine the areas where you might need assistance, and then identify viable consulting options.

Create Incentives to Keep Working

If the loss of certain older employees will have a catastrophic affect on your IT department, create incentives to keep them working. Options include offering more generous health benefits, shortened work years, or additional retirement contributions, among others. This is a temporary solution, but it may be the best one.

Revise Your Training Methods

Before your baby boomers retire, integrate as much of their knowledge and experience as possible into your current training methods. Also encourage them to document their day-to-day responsibilities. Both of these steps can help you transition management and ensure that new employees are as productive as the ones they’ve replaced.

As older employees depart, it is inevitable that you will have to undergo some kind of recruitment process. With your IT department already in a state of change, you will want this process to go as quickly and effectively as possible. To find more of the right replacements faster, contact the IT recruitment specialists at INSPYR Solutions.