Retirement-Proof Your Company

你能列出你的老员工拥有的重要专业技能吗？如果不能，那么你并非一人，但你的公司很可能因此陷入危险。

Can you name the specific, valuable skills your older workers have? If you can’t, you’re not alone — and you’re potentially putting your company at risk.

从全球范围看，大部分劳动者都正在接近退休年龄。美国2017年有6500万年龄超过60岁的人，而这一数字到2020年将增至7700万。在欧洲最大的经济体德国，人口不仅正在老龄化，整体数量也在减少。

A substantial portion of the global workforce is nearing retirement age. In the United States, there were 65 million people over the age of 60 in 2017. This number is expected to grow to more than 77 million by 2020. Germany, the largest economy in Europe, has a population that is not only aging but also declining overall.

研究表明，以上趋势对劳动力规划将产生重大影响。比如大量年长员工可能会退出公司。但组织很难预测他们何时退出：越来越多年长员工迫于生计，或出于自愿，或两者皆有，不断延长工龄。我们不太了解，公司为适应越来越年长和难以预测的劳动力，做出了哪些准备。至于组织对退休年长员工知识与技能交接的管理，我们的相关研究更是凤毛麟角。

Studies suggest that these trends will have significant implications for workforce planning. Older workers may exit organizations in large numbers, for example. And when they exit may get more difficult to predict: Increasing numbers of older people are working longer, due to necessity, desire, or a combination of both. We don’t know much about how actual companies are preparing (or not) for an older, and less predictable, workforce. In particular, there’s very little research on how organizations are managing the transfer of knowledge and skills when older employees walk out the door.

受斯隆基金会资助，我们开始对这一知识缺口展开研究。我们的研究旨在了解面对人口结构的变化，组织如何基于当前有效措施，对自身技能构成进行调整。我们现在撰写的研究报告包括对八家制造工厂的调研：四家在美国，四家在德国。我们总共采访了43名厂长、人力资源经理、区域主管和员工代表，并建立了八个由年长员工组成的焦点小组。

Our research, funded by the Alfred P. Sloan foundation, begins to address this gap. It is aimed at understanding how organizations are adjusting their skill composition in response to demographic changes and what practices are working effectively. We are currently writing up a study consisting of interviews in eight manufacturing facilities: four in the U.S. and four in Germany. In total, we talked to 43 site managers, human resource managers, area supervisors, and employee representatives. We also conducted eight focus groups with older workers.

不出所料，我们了解到，随着劳动力老龄化和年长员工的退休，公司技能流失的风险不断加剧。这意味着公司必须发展较年轻员工以及处在年龄分布中间区的员工，然后基于技能流入和流出，监控并调整整个员工队伍。但很少公司采取了这种做法；我们研究的公司中，只有一家对技能监控和员工队伍调整有正式规划。

Unsurprisingly, we learned that an aging workforce increases firms’ risk of skill loss as older employees retire. This means companies must develop both younger workers and those in the middle of the age distribution, and then monitor and adjust their entire workforce based on the inflow and outflow of skills. Few companies are doing this, however, and only one firm we studied had a formal plan to monitor skills and adjust its workforce.

我们还发现，高层管理者和一线主管对老龄化问题的看法大相径庭。美国和德国的管理者基本上并不担忧大规模退休对整体员工技能构成的影响。美国某化工厂厂长解释说：“我不太担心知识传递，因为根据预测，只是少部分人将陆续退出职场，而非大批量离开——这可能吗？”德国某电子元件工厂的厂长被问到是否能够控制住退休时，这样回答道：“当然。现在还可以。我觉得即便在接下来的五或十年，这都不成问题。”

We also found that top management and frontline supervisors view the aging issue very differently from each other. In both the U.S. and Germany, managers were largely unconcerned about the effects of mass retirements on their workforces’ skill composition. As one site manager of a U.S. chemical facility explained, “I don’t worry about knowledge transfer too much, provided it’s a trickle, and not a tsunami, of people leaving that’s been predicted. Is there ever going to be a tsunami?” A site leader at a German electronic component facility, when asked whether he was able to manage retirement, responded, “Yes. At the moment, yes. I think in the next five, 10 years it will not be a problem.”

为何这种观点非常普遍？从战略角度看，最高领导者的关注点在劳动力的“数量”上。我们采访的多数厂长都表示，他们的员工队伍这些年来因为竞争压力太多，一直在缩减。虽然初级职位的技能要求不断提高，但他们仍可以在有招工需求时找到合适人选。在他们看来，退休仅仅是保持组织中人数适当的一种手段。然而，员工都能清楚认识到这一点：“我们公司在产品制造和创收方面是一把好手，但给他们创造收入的产品之一是裁员。”我们研究中的美国某电子产品焦点小组成员如是说。

Why is this the prevalent sentiment? Top leaders are focused on the quantity of labor from a strategic point of view. Most of the site leaders we spoke with explained that their workforces have been shrinking for years due to competitive pressures, and that they are not having trouble finding entry-level employees when needed, despite increasing skill requirements for those positions. Retirements, in their view, are just another way of helping them keep the right number of people in the organization. Even employees are keenly aware of this: One participant in our U.S. electronics focus group explained, “Although [my company] is good at making product and making money, one of the products they make money at is loss of headcount.”

一线主管的看法则截然不同。在我们的采访中，他们对退休和员工队伍老龄化表现出了明显担忧，特别是对风险技能的质量。尽管高层领导者最关心的是员工人数，但主管比较担心失去战略性职位上的高技能人才。当然，主管往往只管理一小部分员工，所以如果他们的班组中有一名或多名具有稀缺或高水平技能组合，但符合退休条件的员工，他们会看到更大的风险。

Frontline supervisors have a very different perspective, however. In our interviews, their concern about retirements and workforce aging was palpable, particularly about the quality of skills at risk. While high-level leaders were concerned mostly with headcount, supervisors were worried about losing particular high-skill workers in strategically important positions. Supervisors naturally deal with a smaller subset of workers, so when their unit includes one or more retirement-eligible employees with a rare or high-level skill set, they see a greater risk.

美国某电子元件工厂的主管监督两位年逾古稀的员工进行场外作业。这两位员工是仅有的两位能给公司某老式产品提供支持的人；这款产品已停止生产，但对其维护支持依然具有战略性意义。公司没有应对他们退休交接的计划，而且所有文件都使用的是两位员工的母语俄语。主管告诉我们：“我不知道这两个人何时离开，但如果他们明天就走了，我就完了。”德国某电子元件工厂的主管表达类似的担忧：“按公司现在的经营方式看，你不能保证从前的知识能得到延续，不论是在我们这里，还是其他任何地方。”

At a U.S. electronic component facility, one supervisor managed two employees over age 70 at an off-site facility. These employees were the exclusive support for a legacy product that the company no longer manufactured but for which maintenance support was still strategically important. There was no plan to replace the employees when they retire — and all documentation was in the employees’ native language of Russian. “I don’t know when these guys are gonna leave, and if they left tomorrow, I’m done,” the manager told us. A supervisor at a German electronic component facility expressed similar concerns: “Knowledge goes, and the way the company runs, it’s not guaranteed that it will be replaced, either here or anywhere else.”

归根结底，主管面临两方面的问题。首先，在过去几十年中，招聘冻结和减员计划导致企业失去了可以接替高技能老员工的年轻或中年员工。其次，最高管理层更关心员工人数，而非技能管理，因此企业缺乏对知识传递和员工发展的制度支持，很难填补技能缺口。关键职位往往要求应聘者的知识和技能一方面符合组织需要，另一方面外部劳动力市场找不到，而且因极其复杂而无法自动化。

Supervisors ultimately faced a two-pronged problem. First, because of hiring freezes and planned attrition in previous decades, there were no younger or midlevel employees ready to step into the roles that would be vacated by these highly skilled older workers. Second, because top management was concerned more with headcount than with skill management, there was little institutional support for knowledge transfer and employee development to fill skill gaps. Frequently, key positions required organization-specific knowledge and skills that could not be found in the external labor market and that were too complex to be automated.

更大的困难是，管理者认为自己不能讨论退休计划，因为担心涉嫌年龄歧视。美国某化工厂主管解释得最到位：“这几乎是禁忌。我们不能讨论年龄。”我们在美国和德国各级组织中都观察到这种担忧。

Adding to the difficulty is managers’ perceived inability to discuss retirement plans due to concerns of age discrimination. A supervisor in a U.S. chemical facility explained it best: “It’s almost taboo. We don’t discuss age.” We observed this concern in both the U.S. and Germany, at all organizational levels.

随着劳动力不断老化，上述问题将越来越普遍。实际上，我们的研究结果表明，技能短缺表现的形式可能不是大量空缺职位（如上文提到情况），而是大量不合格员工被提拔到了关键职位。如果公司无法填补这一缺口，最终会遭遇招聘冻结和过度精益带来的长期恶果。

These challenges will become more common as workforces continue to age. In fact, our findings suggest that skill shortages are likely to be seen not in the form of larger numbers of unfilled positions, as has been suggested, but in larger numbers of unqualified individuals being moved into key positions. Companies that cannot find ways to fill the gaps will finally experience the long-term consequences of hiring freezes and running lean.

上述问题也有应对之道。我们看到，组织和一线管理者为弥补技能缺口，采取了多种正式和非正式手段。有些效果尤其好。

There are ways to get in front of these issues, however. We observed a number of formal and informal tactics being used by organizations and frontline managers to address skill gaps. Some work better than others.

延迟和传递。其中一种普遍做法是，尽可能拖延技能流失的时间，直到完成传递。比如美国和德国有些公司让本来要轮班的年长员工上日班，这有利于他们培训其他员工并鼓励他们延迟退休。德国有些公司允许年长员工稍微减少工作时间。在美国的几个案例中，我们看到，已经退休的员工以昂贵合同工的身份被返聘，因为暂时还没人能取代他们。还有几家工厂正着手将知识整理成文档，这既是正式的组织要求，也属于由主管引导的非正式流程。

Delay and transfer. One common practice involved delaying the loss of skills as long as possible so that they could be transferred to other employees. For example, in both the U.S. and Germany some companies were able to move a few older workers from rotating shifts to day-shift positions, which helped them train other employees and encouraged them to retire later. Other companies in Germany offered older employees slightly reduced working hours. In the U.S. we saw several cases in which retired employees were brought back as expensive contract workers because they could not be replaced quickly enough. A few facilities were in the middle of documentation processes to capture knowledge, as a part of either formal organization initiatives or informal, supervisor-driven ones.

上述所有方法只在特定情况下有效，存在严重的局限性。特殊岗位的数量有限，有时根本就没有空缺。减少工作时间不一定符合工作的安排方式，而且可能被视为对年轻员工的歧视。退休人员的返聘金额并不高。正式的文档整理流程往往遭到员工抵制，他们认为这是额外工作。

All of these steps were effective in some situations, but they had significant limitations. Special positions were always limited in number, if available at all. Reduced hours do not always match well with the organization of work, and may be perceived as discriminating against younger workers. Contracting with retirees is expensive. And formal documentation processes were often met with resistance by employees, who perceived it as additional work.

在延迟和传递策略方面，受益于本国劳动力组织方式，德国公司可能会颇具优势。我们发现，德国的工会代表积极改变着组织应对劳动力老龄化的方式，美国代表则认为，这并非最优先事项。我们还观察到，德国有很多可协商和挑选的退休计划，让雇主和员工都能受益，其中包括半退休计划，即允许员工减少工作时间，收入也几乎和全职员工持平；以及“分块型”（block model）半退休方式，即员工先做两年全职工作，然后兼职两年，但采用这种方式，只能得到80%的薪酬。我们还发现，相比美国公司，德国的工厂对老龄化的应对方式更灵活。员工可以选择减少工作时间，休更多假，还有时间账户——他们可以存下额外的工作时间，为提前退休做准备。这些可挑选的计划让退休更容易预测，而且对雇主和雇员都有益。

German companies may have an advantage when it comes to the delay-and-transfer strategy, due to the way labor is organized in the country. We found that union representatives there were active participants in shaping an organization’s response to workforce aging, whereas representatives in the U.S. considered it a lower priority. We also observed that many of the negotiated, alternative retirement paths in Germany benefited both employers and employees. These included partial retirement schemes, which allow employees to work reduced hours while maintaining nearly full-time pay, and a “block model” form of partial retirement, in which an employee works full-time for two years and then not at all for two years, receiving 80% pay throughout. We also found that German facilities tended to have a more-flexible response to aging than U.S. facilities did. Employees had access to reduced schedules, more time off, and time accounts in which they could bank extra hours worked and put them toward early retirement. These alternative pathways make retirements easier to predict, and can be mutually beneficial to employers and employees.

混龄团队。就我们研究的公司而言，创建非正式混龄团队能够有效帮助年轻员工学习新技能。混龄团队的年轻员工可以直接向年长员工学习，而年长员工会觉得自己的知识和技能受到了组织的重视。绝大多数区域主管都对混龄团队给出了正面反馈。

Mixed-age teams. In the companies we studied, creating informal mixed-age teams was a particularly effective way to help younger employees build skills. These teams both allowed them to learn directly from older workers and made the older workers feel that their knowledge and skills were valued by the organization. Area supervisors overwhelmingly reported positive experiences with mixed-age teams.

最大的挑战来自资源渠道和工作设计方面。只有为数不多的主管会仅仅以发展手段为理由来增加团队人力成本。我们实际观察到，组织指挥在自然发展情况下或作为非正式监管手段，才会使用混龄团队。并非所有工作都支持这种安排。所以尽管混龄团队相比延迟和传递策略，可能会取得更长期的成功，但在我们研究的案例中基本都没有被正式引进。

The primary challenges were with resource availability and job design. Few supervisors could justify the teams’ personnel cost solely as a development measure. In fact, we observed that mixed-age teams were used only when they were a natural consequence of work organization or a part of informal supervisor initiatives. Not all jobs supported these kinds of arrangements. So while mixed-age teams are likely to have more long-term success than delay-and-transfer strategies, they were rarely introduced formally in our sample.

长期追踪改变。在管理老龄化和技能构成方面表现最好的组织，都在精准追踪这些指标。虽然有几家工厂会检查员工取得的证书或参加的培训项目，但只有一家美国的电子产品制造商为直接追踪基于年龄的技能构成，创建了正式流程。主管会根据流程安排，定期评估本班组中有能力完成自身职务员工的人数、各项职务对组织成功的重要程度，以及现在尚未出现空缺的职位未来是否有后备人选。各职位都会被评分，而分数表明培养后备人选的紧急程度。接下来组织就会分配资源来满足这些需求。

Tracking changes over time. The organizations that best managed aging and skill composition were those that explicitly tracked it. Though several facilities monitored the certifications employees had earned or the training programs they had attended, only one facility — a U.S. electronics manufacturer — had a formal program for directly tracking age-driven skill composition. With this program, supervisors regularly assessed how many people in their unit were capable of doing each job, how important each role was to the organization’s success, and how likely it was that someone could take over a job if the employee currently in it left. Positions were assigned a numerical score that indicated how urgent it was that someone be trained for that role. Resources were then diverted to those needs.

该正式流程之所以得到实施，是因为工厂厂长决定赋权一线主管来应对技能构成的问题。“如果有一个职位每家工厂中只有一个人能胜任，那么该职位的分数会很高。”他告诉我们，“所以我们必须解决这个问题：你要制定出培养新人的计划。”

This formal program was put into practice because the site leader at this facility empowered frontline supervisors to address the issue of skill composition. “If we have a job that only one person in the plant can do, that’s a [high score],” he told us. “So then we kind of force the issue: You have to have a plan to get other people trained.”

领导者应效仿上述做法，在技能构成还没有出问题前，先追踪所有不利因素。公司最高层应留意未来可能退休的员工、他们离开时会带走知识和技能，以及这些因素会如何影响到组织技能的获取。很长一段时间以来，公司在雇用和员工发展方面设置诸多限制，完全没有考虑技能将会受到的长期影响。对这些限制措施的大规模使用必须停止。

Leaders should emulate this approach, tracking any threats to skill composition before they become a problem. At the highest levels, companies should be aware of who is eligible for retirement, what knowledge and skills they will be taking with them when they leave, and how these factors contribute to the flow of skills entering the organization. For too long, companies have implemented hiring restrictions and constraints on employee development without considering the long-term implications on skills. The large-scale use of these practices must end.

虽然我们已经学到一些重要知识，了解到公司正如何应对劳动力老龄化，但还是有很多未解难题。我们的下一项任务是，探究不同国家之间在应对老龄化时是否对组织施加了不同限制。随着年长员工所占比例的增加，未来将更有必要了解老龄化对组织技能的流动的影响、哪些措施在何种条件下最有效及其中原因。

Although we have learned some valuable things about how companies are responding to workforce aging, many questions remain. Our next task is to explore whether there are other country-level differences that constrain organizations’ responses. As the proportion of older workers grows, it will only become more important to understand how aging affects the flow of skills in and out of organizations and what practices are most effective, under what circumstances, and why.

彼得·伯格（Peter Berg） 马特·皮什切克（Matt Piszczek）｜文

彼得·伯格是密歇根州立大学人力资源和劳工关系学院教授兼学术项目副主任。他的研究方向包括劳动力老龄化将如何影响到公共政策和管理措施、工作/生活弹性政策和措施，以及工作时间的国际比较。马特·皮什切克是韦恩州立大学麦克伊利奇商学院管理学助理教授，专攻人力资源管理。他的研究考察与年龄相关的政策以及工作/生活政策的执行情况和影响。