IBM launches baby-boomer transition consulting

Stan Beer
Thursday, 06 October 2005 11:00

IT People - Enterprise

IBM in Australia has announced new consulting services to help organisations deal with the trauma of losing their most experienced workers in the wake of their impending retirement.

As the baby-boom generation reaches traditional retirement age, IBM believes organisations need to prepare for the potential loss of highly-valued skills and knowledge.

The IBM services will provide companies with diagnostic tools based on advanced analytics, strategies and methodologies to understand their employee base in real-time, retain employees, transition knowledge and transform business processes to cope with the demographic change and significant skill shift.

“The aging population will be a major social and business issue for Australia in the 21st Century, and companies worldwide are starting to examine what this means in terms of skills, knowledge, and growth," said Bill Farrell, Asia Pacific leader, IBM Business Consulting Services Human Capital Management group. “The scale of this age-driven change will alter the way work and knowledge are managed within companies moving forward.  Many companies need to take this opportunity to evaluate their workforce skills globally, rethink internal knowledge management, optimise people-based processes, and examine a more globally integrated business model.”

According to IBM, the new consulting services are being launched at a time when workforces around the world are aging. In Australia, a relatively low number of mature workers are choosing to remain in the workforce and the country currently has one of the lowest workforce participation rates for older people in the developed world, with just 49% of Australians between 55-64 years of age working today compared to 59% in the US, 60% in New Zealand and up to 65% in Scandinavia. As workers become eligible for retirement, organisations risk losing major skill sets and their competitive advantage in the global economy. Exacerbating this issue, many organisations do not have a clear view of which skills they may be about to lose to retirement.

IBM's pitch is for its consultants to help organisations analyse and understand in-depth the impact of their own workforce aging and develop strategies to remain competitive in a globalised economy by adapting knowledge systems and business processes accordingly. The services aim to enable companies to better manage workforce skill sets, enhance mature-workers’ productivity and job opportunities and fill the gap retirees will leave by developing new business processes based on open standards, changing the nature of work for many groups as a result. 

The service offering includes:
 
- Analytics: Understanding the workforce exposure.

- Accessibility: Maintain older worker productivity. 

- Skills: Programs to retain older workers and train the next generation. 

- Transformation: Processes to change the nature of work.