Global Demographic Trends: Implication of the Workplace
As society ages, demographic trends change and evolve. This can have a significant impact on the workforce around the world. Impacts such as the aging workforce, more females entering the workforce and the increase in migrants’ means that organisations are increasingly going to have to work on their equal opportunity policies, concentrate on talent management and succession planning. The ageing population means that organisations are going to be required to change how they manage their skilled workforce focus on retaining the knowledge of their ageing employees, and look at ways to retain and engage their older workers.
To understand the impacts on the workplace, one should first look at the definition of demography. The Cambridge advanced learners online dictionary defines demography as the characteristics of people who live in a particular area. This covers a range of characteristics such as age, sex, marital status, disabilities etc. (Definition of demography noun from Cambridge Dictionary Online: Free English Dictionary and Thesaurus). The characteristic that will be discussed in the scope of this paper are the effects of the ageing population on workplaces and how organisations can adapt to the ageing workforce. One of the top five demographic trends causing concerns for organisations is the aging workforce and the retirement of the baby boom generation (Bates, 2006). As the workforce ages, companies could be facing severe shortages in labour as older employees retire, taking their knowledge and experiences with them. They could also see a drop in productivity of older workers. A recent study by RWC Power found that in 2018 almost 80% of their workers would be 50 years or older. Furthermore, in several critical areas, surpluses in labour would suddenly become sizable shortfalls. (Strack, Baier, & Fahlander, 2008). Other problems aging employees can present are incapacity to perform in physically demanding jobs, less motivation due to a lack of career
To understand the impacts on the workplace, one should first look at the definition of demography. The Cambridge advanced learners online dictionary defines demography as the characteristics of people who live in a particular area. This covers a range of characteristics such as age, sex, marital status, disabilities etc. (Definition of demography noun from Cambridge Dictionary Online: Free English Dictionary and Thesaurus). The characteristic that will be discussed in the scope of this paper are the effects of the ageing population on workplaces and how organisations can adapt to the ageing workforce. One of the top five demographic trends causing concerns for organisations is the aging workforce and the retirement of the baby boom generation (Bates, 2006). As the workforce ages, companies could be facing severe shortages in labour as older employees retire, taking their knowledge and experiences with them. They could also see a drop in productivity of older workers. A recent study by RWC Power found that in 2018 almost 80% of their workers would be 50 years or older. Furthermore, in several critical areas, surpluses in labour would suddenly become sizable shortfalls. (Strack, Baier, & Fahlander, 2008). Other problems aging employees can present are incapacity to perform in physically demanding jobs, less motivation due to a lack of career
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