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Training the Aging Workforce

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Alice Snell kind­ly brings to our atten­tion her nice post, Baby Boomers: The Beat Goes On, com­ment­ing on sev­er­al reports and arti­cles on the aging work­force challenge. 

This is a very impor­tant top­ic, and direct­ly relat­ed to what we are doing. Let me pro­vide an overview with these 10 points. First, some context:

1) The Con­fer­ence Board pub­lished a good report in 2005 titled America’s Aging Work­force Pos­ing New Oppor­tu­ni­ties and Chal­lenges. Quotes:

  • “Some 64 mil­lion baby boomers (over 40 per­cent of the U.S. labor force) are poised to retire in large num­bers by the end of this decade. In indus­tries already fac­ing labor and skills short­ages, for­ward-think­ing com­pa­nies are recruit­ing, retain­ing, and devel­op­ing flex­i­ble work-time arrange­ments and/or phased retire­ment plans for these work­ers (55 years of age or old­er), many of whom have skills that are dif­fi­cult to replace. Such actions are putting these com­pa­nies ahead of com­peti­tors who view the aging work­force large­ly as a bur­den putting strains on pen­sion plans and health­care costs.”
  • “More old­er work­ers want to remain in their jobs for both per­son­al ful­fill­ment and finan­cial rea­sons. In a relat­ed forth­com­ing study from The Con­fer­ence Board, more than half (55 per­cent) of old­er employ­ees sur­veyed said they were not plan­ning to retire because they find their jobs inter­est­ing. Sig­nif­i­cant­ly, 74 per­cent also cit­ed not hav­ing suf­fi­cient finan­cial resources as a rea­son they were con­tin­u­ing to work, and 60 per­cent cit­ed the need for med­ical benefits.”

Not only in the US: the largest sin­gle group with­in the UK work­force in 2006 was com­prised of peo­ple between 45 and 59.

2) Some con­sult­ing com­pa­nies like Accen­ture seem to be bet­ting that the solu­tion will be to improve tech­nol­o­gy for knowl­edge trans­fer and train younger employ­ees as soon as pos­si­ble (inter­view notes of the con­ver­sa­tion between Accen­ture’s CEO Bill Green and William J. Hol­stein, edi­tor in chief of Chief Exec­u­tive magazine.)

3) And the mar­ket for Tal­ent Man­age­ment and Suc­ces­sion Plan­ning solu­tions has been grow­ing steadi­ly, and [Read more…] about Train­ing the Aging Workforce

Sunday Afternoon Quiz

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Here’s a quick quiz to test your mem­o­ry and think­ing skills which should work out your tem­po­ral and frontal lobes. See how you do!

  1. Name the one sport in which nei­ther the spec­ta­tors nor the par­tic­i­pants know the score or the leader until the con­test ends.
  2. What famous North Amer­i­can land­mark is con­stant­ly mov­ing backward?
  3. Of all veg­eta­bles, only two can live to pro­duce on their own for sev­er­al grow­ing sea­sons. All oth­er veg­eta­bles must be replant­ed every year. What are the only two peren­ni­al vegetables?
  4. What fruit has its seeds on the outside?
  5. In many liquor stores, you can buy pear brandy, with a real pear inside the bot­tle. The pear is whole and ripe, and the bot­tle is gen­uine; it has­n’t been cut in any way. How did the pear get inside the bottle?
  6. Only three words in Stan­dard Eng­lish begin with the let­ters “dw” and they are all com­mon words. Name two of them.
  7. There are 14 punc­tu­a­tion marks in Eng­lish gram­mar. Can you name at least half of them?
  8. Name the one veg­etable or fruit that is nev­er sold frozen, canned, processed, cooked, or in any oth­er form except fresh.
  9. Name 6 or more things that you can wear on your feet begin­ning with the let­ter “S.”

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Answers To Quiz:

  1.  The one sport in which nei­ther the spec­ta­tors, nor the par­tic­i­pants, know the score or the leader until the con­test ends: boxing
  2.  The North Amer­i­can land­mark con­stant­ly mov­ing back­ward: Nia­gara Falls (the rim is worn down about two and a half feet each year because of the mil­lions of gal­lons of water that rush over it every minute.)
  3. Only two veg­eta­bles that can live to pro­duce on their own for sev­er­al grow­ing sea­sons: aspara­gus and rhubarb.
  4. The fruit with its seeds on the out­side: strawberry.
  5. How did the pear get inside the brandy bot­tle? It grew inside the bot­tle. (The bot­tles are placed over pear buds when they are small and are wired in place on the tree. The bot­tle is left in place for the entire grow­ing sea­son. When the pears are ripe, they are snipped off at the stems.)
  6. Three Eng­lish words begin­ning with “dw”: dwarf, dwell, and dwindle.
  7. Four­teen punc­tu­a­tion marks in Eng­lish gram­mar: peri­od, com­ma, colon, semi­colon, dash, hyphen, apos­tro­phe, ques­tion mark, excla­ma­tion point, quo­ta­tion marks, brack­ets, paren­the­sis, braces, and ellipses.
  8. The only veg­etable or fruit nev­er sold frozen, canned, processed, cooked, or in any oth­er form but fresh: lettuce.
  9. Six or more things you can wear on your feet begin­ning with “s”: shoes, socks, san­dals, sneak­ers, slip­pers, skis, skates, snow­shoes, stock­ings, stilts.

 

More brain teas­er games:

Baby Boomers, Memory and Wisdom

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The NYT Mag­a­zine today is devot­ed to the top­ic of Can Sci­ence Tell us Who Grows Wis­er.

It may have been even bet­ter had the ques­tion been, “What Sci­ence Tells us About How we Can Grow Wis­er”, but it is a pret­ty good issue anyway.

A very good arti­cle on The Older–and–Wiser Hypoth­e­sis. Quotes: 

Theater for brain fitness

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Cog­ni­tive Dai­ly brings an intrigu­ing arti­cle titled Is the­ater the ulti­mate brain fit­ness prod­uct?, based on research pub­lished in 2004 by Hel­ga and Tony Noice.

Very inter­est­ing results on mem­o­ry and prob­lem-solv­ing. Will inves­ti­gate whether that exper­i­ment has been repli­cat­ed since then and we can rec­om­mend such a fun (and demand­ing) brain fit­ness activity!

If you live in the San Fran­cis­co Bay Area, you may be inter­est­ed in the Geezer The­ater orga­nized by one of our part­ners, the Osh­er Life­long Learn­ing Institute.

Alzheimer’s: Brain Structure Changes Years Before Memory Loss Begins

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Alzheimer’s And Demen­tia: Brain Struc­ture Changes Years Before Mem­o­ry Loss Begins
Sci­ence Dai­ly — “Peo­ple who devel­op demen­tia or Alzheimer’s dis­ease expe­ri­ence brain struc­ture changes years before any signs of mem­o­ry loss begin,…”

The good news is that this can lead to bet­ter and ear­li­er assessments:

“Researchers say these find­ings may help iden­ti­fy peo­ple at risk of devel­op­ing mild cog­ni­tive impair­ment (MCI), which leads to Alzheimer’s disease.”

Books on neuroplasticity and memory training

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Neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty: the brain’s abil­i­ty to reor­ga­nize itself by form­ing new con­nec­tions through­out life. (see more con­cepts in our Glos­sary).

We coud­n’t be hap­pi­er about the grow­ing num­ber of books pop­u­lar­iz­ing the key lessons about brain train­ing that Dr. Elkhonon Gold­berg has been research­ing and writ­ing about for years, and that moti­vat­ed us to embark our­selves in the Sharp­Brains adventure.

Dis­cov­er Mag­a­zine presents a great arti­cle, Rewiring the Brain, review­ing two recent books.

  • The sub­ti­tle is “Neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty can allow for treat­ment of senil­i­ty, post-trau­mat­ic stress, ­obses­sive-com­pul­sive dis­or­der, and depres­sion and Bud­dhists have been cap­i­tal­iz­ing on it for mil­lenia.” I would add that the strong val­ue of life­long learn­ing present in jesuit and jew­ish tra­di­tions reflects the same wis­dom. Some quotes:
  • “Two new books, Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain (Bal­lan­tine Books, $24.95) by sci­ence jour­nal­ist Sharon Beg­ley and The Brain That Changes Itself (Viking, $24.95) by psy­chi­a­trist Nor­man Doidge, offer mas­ter­ful­ly guid­ed tours through the bur­geon­ing field of neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty research. Each has its own style and empha­sis; both are excellent.”
  • “Final­ly, both authors con­clude that adult neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty is a vast­ly under­tapped resource, one with which West­ern med­i­cine and psy­chol­o­gy are just now com­ing to grips. An impor­tant emerg­ing research agen­da is to [Read more…] about Books on neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty and mem­o­ry training