Encore Careers

Off the air for a while, I've actually had some opportunities come my way which I've been focussing on.

Anyway, following up from a previous post on HR hurdles, I had a morning coffee with my long time mentor and former manager.  This person is now involved with executive education at one of Australia's post graduate institutions.

Much of discussions revolved around "baby boomers", and our inherent sense of entitlement borne somewhat of our tenure, age and in some instances results.  We pondered during our hour together what is frustrating Gen X/Y/Z and exacerbating their opinions of older workers.

Given the very poor follow up education undertaken by boomers, it is possibly not surprising to suggest that the younger workers out there might see us as out-dated, technologically inept, and generally unaware of how the market/s operate in an i-Device world.

While unemployed, I've not sat idle.  I am constantly reading, educating myself (or more correctly re-educating myself), and find in the past 5 or so years* - the world really has turned upside down in regard to how we buy, interact, sell, buy, recruit/hire, fire, relate, interrelate etc.

Possibly doing it hard for the past few years has put me in a better position to see what the entitled, ensconced boomer is not seeing - who knows?  Do we necessarily deserve to be where we are, or should we maybe be listening to the very smart, agile and learned youngons coming through?  Could this improve our opportunities to remain engaged, employed and relevant as we near our retirement - or will be looked upon as the dinosaurs we might possibly already be....

My mentor mentioned "encore careers" - more on that shortly.

Have a great day.
Dom
* -  (incidently today is the 5th anniversary of the launch of the iPhone by Apple)