The boomer brain drain is the growing trend of boomer workers retiring or leaving the full-time workforce and employers failing to put plans in place for their departure.
In Canada alone, over 30,000 baby boomers leave the workforce every month. In the United States that number is estimated to be up to ten to twelve times as large. As thousands of baby boomers retire or leave the workforce daily across North America, stemming the brain drain will become a critical issue.
In this fascinating Forbes article, we see that as experienced professionals continue to leave the workforce, companies suffer by losing institutional knowledge, relationship, process and corporate process know-how and names of key contacts.
All of this information is useful to the workers who will step in to handle these roles.
This is particularly important to help companies facilitate knowledge transfer. In fact, Forbes cites that:
- 4 million boomers leave the workforce
- 56% of retiring boomers are in leadership positions
What does this mean for boomers and for employers?
Quite simply that they need each other. Employers are starting to recognize the value of having experienced professionals available to fill critical gaps and boomers are starting to realize that there is demand for experienced leaders.