Don’t Waste What Boomers Know.

By Karen and Erica

Boomers have been in the workforce for decades. Our experience is vast. But soon, all that experience could walk out the door. That’s bad for enterprises of all sorts, and also bad for younger workers who could benefit from what we know. The solution: build smart, intergenerational workforces. 

Boomers are leaving the workforce as we reach retirement age. More than 11,200 Americans will turn 65 every day–or over 4.2 million every year–from 2024 through 2027, according to estimates from the Retirement Income Institute at the Alliance for Lifetime Income. Age 65 has traditionally been thought of as retirement age. 

When we retire, what we know could retire with us. According to a recent survey shared by PBS,

• 57 percent of boomers have shared half or less of the knowledge neede to perform their job responsibilities to a younger generation with those who will assume them after they retire
• 21 percent have shared none of their knowledge
• Only 18 percent have shared all of their knowledge.

Does that matter? 

Undoubtedly, there are those of later generations who think Boomers know nothing useful. In a world of generative AI and social media, what do we have to offer? And it is true–we are not going to be the ones to teach Gen X about a new, all AI YouTube channel. Or Sora. They will be teaching us. But what we have to offer can only come with decades of life experience. New technology does not change that ancient, human reality.

• For one thing, new technology does not immediately change everything, overnight. Implementation takes time, and those who know how to make the machines work while change is happening remain essential. As this compelling essay points out, change is incremental, even when a technological breakthrough occurs. 

Even if AI discovers a miraculous new battery chemistry, we’d still need 7-10 years minimum to explore mineral locations, secure permits and financing, mine and process materials, build factories, and establish supply chains. Likewise, an AI might virtually design a revolutionary new medicine in seconds, but manufacturing millions of doses demands building chemical plants, sourcing reagents, passing safety trials, and distributing the drug worldwide – a process that takes up to 15 years.

Because of that, retaining older workers until their knowledge is transferred, and creating an atmosphere that values them and what they know, is vital. 

Baby Boomers are now eligible to retire at a rate of ten thousand employees per day. This means vast amounts of organizational experience stands to be lost if leaders do not encourage the passing down and transfer of certain kinds of vital knowledge. Once it is gone, it cannot be replaced. Recognizing the need for generationally positive atmospheres in the workplace is also needed for younger workers to be willing and interested in transferring their unique knowledge, as well as for them to be open to learning what older generations have to teach.

• Second, keeping Boomers occupied will save society all kinds of medical costs as we age. Many Boomers want very much to be productive after retirement age, and would be delighted to pass their knowledge to receptive younger folks. They would stay in the mix, have purpose, have a paycheck, and stave off the decline that comes with being treated as irrelevant. 

• Third, Boomers have much more to teach than specific task expertise.

“Older candidates,” [Miriam Groom, an industrial and organizational therapist and HR strategist and CEO of Mindful Career] says, “come with more life experience, the ability to understand complex problems and come up with creative resolutions to them – things that individuals with less life experience may not be able to do simply due to not having enough time for the trials and errors of life.”

These soft skills are essential. We know how people feel. We can read a room. We can solve complex problems. We can react to sudden surprises. These skills have nothing to do with the specific technology of the day. They are instead completely transferable to any activity involving human beings. And they can’t be done by AI. AI bots struggle with emotion

Of course, most of us do not want to work 24/7, into our 90s. We need jobs tailored to fit us, given our age and experience, designed to put us together with smart eager younger people who want to learn what we know. Our experience is distilled, and can be leveraged by having us available as needed. Pay and benefits can be negotiated. The point is-–to let us walk away with all we know would be incredibly wasteful. To preserve what we know is easy, if we can all be creative.

Finally, we understand many think AI will replace all workers, or at least all new workers, and will have access to vast databases that will make what we know inconsequential. We’re not sure how that can happen. If there are no entry level jobs for the newbies, then soon there will be no experienced workers. If we expect humans to work with the bots, as we anticipate, the humans need the benefit of our experience. Much of that is not the product of a mathematical calculation, but is rather dependent upon human judgment. To think otherwise is to imagine a world where we entrust everything to generative AI. That seems unwise. Are the AI bots going to run, and run us, based on machine learning? That sounds scary. Bots cannot actually make judgments. Unlike younger humans, they probably cannot learn to make judgments, either.

So who will decide our future? Will humans be observers as the AI bots duke it out?

No. Humans are not replaceable. Boomers can show us why.

Let’s think about how to create the workforce of the future. Together.