The term “baby boomers” refers to people who were born between the years 1947 and 1966. In Canada, this demographic group makes up an amazing two-thirds of the public sector workforce. A Canadian public sector employee can retire at 55 years of age – an age that is smack-dab in the middle of this significant demographic! In spite of the increased number of people choosing to delay their retirement due to recent economic instabilities, the retirement rate of baby boomers continues to rise.
The retirement of the baby boom generation is a looming reality for many government departments. In Canada, the typical retiring public servant has banked, on average, 29.2 years in pensionable service. Think about that! If you don’t have a plan in place, one retiring worker could represent nearly 30 years of lost expertise. Those thirty years also represent a large investment of time and resources on the part of the government department.
Employee experience isn’t disposable; in fact, it is essential to the functions of the department. For this reason, it is absolutely crucial to capture the knowledge of retiring employees so that it can be transferred to other employees. The health and efficiency of the government department depends on it.
So, how can a government department ensure that the expertise of retiring employees is communicated in a way that benefits other employees? The department must prepare a succession plan that will direct training development, delivery, and investment. A succession plan can help:
- Capture the knowledge and job expertise of retiring employees
- Provide support tools for organizational restructuring
- Transfer critical employee knowledge to other employees in the organization
- Translate captured knowledge into efficient training programs that optimize return on investment
Are you still not sure if a succession plan could help your department? Has your department already developed a succession plan? Want to see how could be improved?