your people are your biggest assets.by steven e. sacks
the new fundamentals
there are about 80 million baby boomers today, and this cohort of 65 and older is projected by the us census bureau to reach 83.7 million in the year 2050.
more steven sacks: would you buy your own services? | the future of the accounting profession | avoid last-minute deal making | business is about relationships | can a cpa firm be different in a changing market? | a rapidly changing business environment requires flexibility | accounting is a profession, not an industry
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by 2030, more than 20 percent of u.s. residents are projected to be aged 65 and over, compared with 13 percent in 2010 and 9.8 percent in 1970.
a large part of this growth is due to the aging of baby boomers (individuals born in the united states between mid-1946 and mid-1964), who began turning 65 in 2011 and are now driving growth at the older ages of the population. every day, 10,000 people turn 65. there are more than personal financial issues at stake here.
what does this mean for the cpa profession?
the biggest concern is about the loss of experience, and more important, institutional, client, and customer knowledge. this loss can be due to long-term illness, maternity leave, resignations, accidents, and acquisitions. what results is increased stress, impatience, and frustration diminished productivity and a negative economic impact. moreover, as systems and processes remain stagnant, there is less urgency for training and expansion of skills that can leverage the knowledge and broaden exposure for current and future employees. this is not unique to any one particular industry. because training is not the number one priority (apart from the necessary learning of technical standards and rules), skills and capabilities are not expanded to create new ways of thinking that result in new policies and procedures. are employers doing anything about this? the existing knowledge is lodged in the minds of leaders, managers, and lower-level staff and may be need to be dislodged.
knowledge has a price
employees move on, retire, become ill or relocate and there is no process in place to capture what they know. if a company is acquired, a new leader may drive a different strategic direction that does not embrace the accumulated knowledge of the employees. even a simple reorganization undertaken to improve productivity and profits will diminish the value of institutional knowledge — not to mention the additional costs associated with a learning curve.
you must consider what knowledge is lost when certain employees leave, what the business consequences will be of losing that knowledge, and what safeguards can be put in place to mitigate the damage.
every team, division or department should have a proactive process for maintaining this collective organizational knowledge. this means policies and procedures should be developed so onboarding for new employees can be accomplished efficiently and effectively. however, it is important to know the key things your employees should be able to do. a firm or company should have team meetings on a regular basis to evaluate and refresh the process(es) and assess the skill and knowledge levels of its teams.
and what about those who have reached retirement age. is it really practical for them to pack up their belongings, throw them a retirement party, and send them off into the sunset? logic dictates that keeping these folks available in a consultative capacity to offer tangible and intangible guidance shows you value them for the benefit they offer the company or firm, as well as its new generation of leaders.
use the available knowledge management technologies on the market to develop mechanisms for collecting and safekeeping this organizational knowledge and enhance functionality that is not tedious or burdensome. during this process, you may discover new and better ways of operating that can be shared.
so it is not only the maintenance of knowledge but its expansion as well.
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