In case you hadn’t noticed the fertility rate is dropping, the world’s population is aging and it’s happening in a way that will forever change the workplace.

Back in 2010, Standard & Poor’s predicted that the biggest influence on “the future of national economic health, public finances, and policymaking” will be “the irreversible rate at which the world’s population is aging.”

As usual, our governments at all levels are doing little more than funding studies, wringing their hands and making dire predictions. In all likelihood they will continue doing more of the same, since constructive efforts would require bipartisan cooperation, and politicians aren’t known for their willingness to bite unpopular bullets — as our country’s aging/decrepit infrastructure proves.

Companies, by contrast, are uniquely positioned to change practices and attitudes now. Transformation won’t be easy, but companies that move past today’s preconceptions about older employees and respond and adapt to changing demographics will realize significant dividends, generating new possibilities for financial return and enhancing the lives of their employees and customers.

Companies might be in a better positioned, but rampant cognitive bias, whether unconscious or conscious, often prevails, resulting in a preference for hiring “people like me.”

Soon, the workforce will include people from as many as five generations ranging in age from teenagers to 80-somethings.

Are companies prepared? The short answer is “no.” Aging will affect every aspect of business operations — whether it’s talent recruitment, the structure of compensation and benefits, the development of products and services, how innovation is unlocked, how offices and factories are designed, and even how work is structured — but for some reason, the message just hasn’t gotten through.

So forget companies.

Current bosses, as well as bosses-to-be, have the great advantage of being able to do it now themselves, rather than waiting for their companies to act.

And it’s to their advantage, assuming they want to keeping their teams humming, well-staffed and highly productive.

But, depending on your MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™), don’t expect it to happen overnight or minimize the amount of work that may be required.

To get started, click the link at the link. It will take you to a seven part series in the Harvard Business Review called The Aging Workforce. It’s probably the fastest way to wrap your mind around what’s happening in all its complexity — or at least a lot of it.

And join me tomorrow for a closer look at cognitive bias, which affects the entire human race — including you and me.

Image credit: Justin Henry

Poking through 11+ years of posts I find information that’s as useful now as when it was written.

Golden Oldies is a collection of the most relevant and timeless posts during that time.

It’s been 10 years since I wrote this. Nothing has change and, if anything, it’s gotten worse.

Rigidity has gotten more rigid, if possible, and it’s far more prevalent up, down, and round and round the generations. And it’s still a total waste of time and energy.

Read other Golden Oldies here.

There’s a lot of talk right now about the resistance of mangers and older employees to Web 2.0 initiatives and the information-sharing that goes with them.

Kind of amusing that this big generational argument is happening during the 40th anniversary of the Summer of Love, the start of the biggest generational fight most of us remember—we weren’t around for the Roaring Twenties, the rise of jazz, let alone rebelled with the suffragettes.

The Boomer theme of, “you can’t trust anyone over thirty” is being reprised today by the wired generation.

The Boomers accused their bosses of being unwilling to change and when they became the bosses, they were accused in turn. Some things never change.

Generational differences have always existed, with the younger generation blasting into the future and screaming that the older ones are holding them back, but it’s ridiculous to paint everybody over a certain age with the same brush.

In May I commented that I thought a lot of the problem was grounded in insecurity and I still believe that, but I’ve done a lot of thinking because the subject’s so prevalent and have some further thoughts.

It should be remembered that managers’ rigidity has as much to do as much with the corporate culture as with the individuals involved. Openness is based on trust and if the culture doesn’t foster that then you should expect people to be ultra turf conscious, not interested in sharing, and prone to spending large amounts of energy fighting every new thing that comes along. In 2007 it’s Web 2.0; twenty-five years ago it was telecommuting (and still is in many companies).

But if we’re going to talk about rigidity, then it has to be recognized that it’s on all sides—there are a lot of pretty rigid twenty- and thirty-somethings (and no one in their right mind ever called a teenager flexible). If you have any doubts about this, try getting to your twenty-something co-workers to approach a subject from any position other than the one they advocate.

It’s not so much doing it differently, as it is doing it my way and, unhappily, that attitude has substantially worsened.

It seems that everybody has a group and while their group is OK, other groups, i.e., any that don’t agree with theirs, are rigid, inflexible, and standing in the way of progress.

There’s value to be found in most approaches and when that value is tweaked and/or merged with other methods the result is usually worth far more than the original.

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Image credit: After Yesterday on flickr