Human Resources Issues for Senior Management
Issue link: https://digital.hrreporter.com/i/747024
CANADIAN HR STRATEGY/09 this segment of the population, they all want to retire, so it's a very speci c need: 'What can you do for us?'" With demographics and disruptive technologies, traditional de nitions of concepts don't apply anymore, says Rubenyan. For example, with retirement. "The discourse isn't 'Whether I retire at 62 or 65...' It used to be and it probably is for a large segment of the population, but there's a lot of people who have moved beyond that," he says. "For them, retirement doesn't have an age, it's really a state of physical, mental state, where they will say, 'You know what, I'm ready to go, I'm ready to stop and whether I'm 55, 50, yeah, for me this is retirement.' So I think where we'll have some chal- lenges is when we try to de ne what is retirement now. You've got to be careful because it might not apply to everyone." Employees are inundated with information at any given time, says Daniels, "but there's no framework or steps on how to engage or use the tools at what appropriate time and to really derive something meaningful from that to go and springboard and create a solid action plan. They just don't know." A workshop-oriented program, for example, can see employ- ees discussing the issues and then coming back six months later to talk about the ideas they've implemented, he says. "That way, you can see what works for some people, what doesn't for others and move on." When you're trying to change the philosophy in an organiza- tion, sometimes it's about the little things, says Daniels. "We actually provided workshops based on early, mid- and late career, and it was interesting to see there were little differ- ences between the seminars or the workshops. And the behav- iour change was radical, actually." To really reach people, it's about having a structured format, FEATURE/roundtable so telling people about a certain session on a certain date and time, at a particular location, says Wiginton. "It's a marketing thing — you've got to sell the program to get people involved. Maybe have food, that's a simple way to get people to show up. If we don't put that in place, if we don't bring it to them, they're not going out and getting it themselves, even though it's the greatest stress in their life. They're still not taking action, moving forward with it." Targeting employees with more focused messaging can help in segmenting people by gender, age groups or career stages, says Buchanan. "It's about individual contact because it's a very personal thing," she says. "It's not something you're going to x with one webinar. It's just speci cally about a person and that person's moment in time, because how you are six months from today may be dramatically different than two years from today when you've lost a spouse or you've lost a job." CHANGING BEHAVIOURS And while it's great to be offering programs, the problem lies in people's behaviours and how they manage their day-to-day nances, says Wiginton. Many are spending anywhere from 100 per cent to 120 per cent of their income, he says, which is a big reason for their stress. "Having a program that sits there and says, 'OK, if you put a dollar in, we're going to contribute a dollar more,' they're go- ing back to their families and their family's saying, 'Well, we're spending 110 per cent, where's that dollar going to come from?' And it's going to escalate their debt and it's going to escalate those issues... you can't help somebody with their debt un- til you help them with their day-to-day spending, with their