The Conference Board brings breadth of expertise to bear on maturing workforce demographic with major grant from the Atlantic Philanthropies...New research will document company practices and programs to engage late-career workers

NEW YORK, June 7 /PRNewswire/ -- Building on more than 25 years of research on older workers in the workplace, The Conference Board, currently celebrating its 90th anniversary, is launching an expanded maturing workforce research initiative.

The effort received generous support from the Atlantic Philanthropies USA, Inc., in the form of a three-year, $2 million grant to study the inclusion and engagement of late-career workers in corporations and not-for-profit organizations.

The Conference Board will examine the practices and policies of major employers and business community leaders and related concerns and needs of today's mature workforce. The Conference Board plans to share promising practices for creating and maintaining a workforce inclusive of all generations.

Some 64 million baby boomers active in the U.S. labor force are poised to retire in large numbers by the end of this decade.

"It is more appropriate than ever to launch this initiative during our 90th anniversary year because The Conference Board was founded in 1916 by a group of visionary CEOs who believed that they could both perform profitably and in the public interest," says Linda Barrington, Research Director and Labor Economist, and co-director of the grant project team with Lorrie Foster, Executive Director, Councils and Working Groups at The Conference Board. "Analyzing the opportunities and challenges that the aging of the workforce presents to business aligns perfectly with our continuing mission to help businesses perform better and better serve society."

The maturing workforce initiative at The Conference Board is underpinned by strong research capabilities in Strategic Workforce Planning, Talent Management, and Employee Engagement. According to Foster, "A unique strength of our research is that the Research Working Group model keeps it 'real.'" The Conference Board Research Working Groups bring together consortia of executives interested in actionable research on specific business issues. "In these groups, we have front-line executives serving as research advisors and resources," adds Foster.

The maturing workforce initiative at The Conference Board will convene separate Research Working Groups on mature workforce issues in the private and not-for-profit sectors. Marketplace opportunities related to the aging U.S. population will also be addressed in research from the Consumer Research Center at The Conference Board.

The Conference Board work will look at mature workers in two distinct roles-as employees and as potential retirees. It will focus on problems facing mature workers, the costs and value of mature workers, the hidden values of their job satisfaction, the impact of rising healthcare costs on these workers, emerging opportunities from aging consumer markets, prospects for building a better intergenerational workplace, and models for retirement. It intends to create new strategies to help major employers leverage the skills of employees who are late into their careers. The initiative will also periodically issue timely briefings and updates.

The Conference Board initiative team also includes Jeri Sedlar, Senior Advisor to The Conference Board on Mature Workforce Issues, and author of the best-selling Don't Retire, Rewire!, and academic researchers and topic experts who will collaborate with other research organizations working in this field.

The Conference Board took the lead in research on mature workers last year with the publication of Managing the Mature Workforce, a definitive study on how the role of the mature worker is rapidly changing in today's workplace.

The Conference Board also published a short follow-up report (Age and Opportunity: Plan Strategically to Get the Most Out of a Maturing Workforce) in April which found that companies benefit by thinking of the issue of managing a maturing workforce as more than a negative (a problem to be dealt with). The companies who are succeeding in getting the most of older workers view the problem strategically as an opportunity for change within the organization.

The report advises that even the most basic HR strategy designed to deal with the challenges posed by a maturing workforce should include three goals: capture critical knowledge/expertise of retiring workers and transfer it; develop flexible work arrangements and benefits to suit needs of valued retirement-eligible employees; and create a culture welcoming to employees of all generations.

The report also states that while 90 percent of survey participants in a pulse poll of The Conference Board Councils for Talent Management and Diversity executives said managing mature workers was either a very or fairly important business issue for them, only 55 percent had conducted a strategic workforce analysis to determine the profile of their employee populations.

The next report from The Conference Board on these issues will be Strategic Workforce Planning, to be published later this month.

ABOUT THE CONFERENCE BOARD

Not-for-profit and non-partisan, The Conference Board is one of the world's leading research and business membership organizations. It produces the widely-watched Consumer Confidence Index, Help-Wanted Advertising Index, and Leading Economic Indicators for the U.S. and eight other major nations. The Conference Board is also noted for its economic forecasts and CEO surveys, and for its studies on global productivity, corporate governance, business ethics, corporate citizenship, workplace diversity and mature workers. Its conference and council programs attract more than 18,000 senior executives each year. www.conference-board.org.

ABOUT ATLANTIC PHILANTHROPIES USA, INC.

The Atlantic Philanthropies are dedicated to bringing about lasting changes in the lives of disadvantaged and vulnerable people through grant-making. Atlantic focuses on critical social problems related to aging, disadvantaged children and youth, population health, and reconciliation and human rights. Programs funded by Atlantic operate in Australia, Bermuda, Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, South Africa, the United States and Viet Nam. To learn more, please visit www.atlanticphilanthropies.org.

Source: The Conference Board