In academia, the effects of the retirement of its graying workforce are being felt.  As higher education expanded in the 1960’s and 1970’s, new professors were hired by the boatload.  Many were liberal and involved in student protests, social causes, and a generation of college and university politics that were sometimes tumultuous.  These now graying professors are leaving in large numbers, being replaced by younger profs with a different hair color and mindset.  How much the college campus should change is being debated, but it’s changing quickly.  No one is suggesting that academia just go with the flow, but institutions of higher learning that don’t aggressively evaluate, plan and act will be left behind in the dust of the whirlwind currently engulfing them.  And so will you.

Higher education is hardly by itself in its graying and rapid changing.  All kinds of companies, organizations and institutions are beginning to feel the effects of something that, despite all the talk, is difficult to comprehend.  That makes evaluating, planning and acting all the more difficult.

Baby boomers are turning 60 by the thousands each day.  Some boomers are retiring.  Some are trying to figure out when to retire or whether or retire.  Some have decided not to retire, either because they can’t or don’t want to.  But one thing’s for sure.  A lot of older employees with a certain hair color and mindset will be gone from every workplace soon, replaced by employees who are younger and think differently.  Their gender will be different as well.  There will be more people of color.  If you’ve been looking for a challenge in human resources, it’s here.

As is the case with academia, the old timers (some of whom will be in the C-Suite) bemoan the change.  They’re stressed out.  They resist.  If not brought around, they threaten the organization’s future.  The baby doesn’t have to be thrown out with the bathwater, but the demographic change occurring in the workplace right now is so enormous, progressive (perhaps radical) thinking and dialogue are necessary.

HR should be right in the middle of all this.  If “all this” isn’t happening in your workplace, you need to try to make it happen.  One caveat.  Remember that the gray employees are in the protected age group.  In your fervor to make change or at least stay up with the change stirring in your workplace daily, don’t throw the boomers out with the bathwater either.  As the U.S. Supreme Court ruled a short time ago, older employees not only have rights, it’s easier for them to assert them now.

Hang on.  We’re just getting started.