Welcome to the October 12, 2005 issue of The Total View

Published by Success Performance Solutions, Written by Ira S. Wolfe

Visit our Human Resources Blog and Perfect Labor Storm Blog where we can post daily (and more often) human resource updates, news, and Perfect Labor Storm facts. 

What's Inside:

1.  Is it time to retire retirement?

Two-thirds of all people to have ever lived beyond age 65 - throughout the history of the world - are alive today. Today's infrastructure not set up for a world of older citizens.

Retirement was created to reduce unemployment among younger people during the Depression and to create a safety net for individuals who were expected to draw benefits for a handful of years beyond a set retirement age, not several decades.

In 1940 just a few years after the start of Social Security, only 54 percent of the population lived to 65 years old. The average remaining life expectancy for those surviving to age 65 was less than 13 years. Today, the percentage of men living to 65 is nearly 75 percent and for women it is almost 85 percent. For those who live to age 65, men are expected to live almost another 16 years and women more than 20 years.

That means the years spent in retirement has increased over 2000 percent since 1900 when the average retiree lived only 1.2 years. By the year 2025, the total number of Americans over age 65 and eligible for Medicare will double to over 70 million within this generation, while the population over age 85 will increase nearly five-fold, to almost 19 million, by mid-century.

While the number of people over age 65 will double, the number of workers contributing funds to support them will decline. When social security legislation was enacted in 1935, the ratio of contributing workers to each beneficiary was 41.9:1. That ratio dropped to 16.5:1 in 1950. The current ratio is 3.4:1. Social security trustees predict the ratio will drop to 2:1 in 2040.

The ratio of entry-level wage earners to retirees has dropped from 9:1 in 1955 to 4:1 in 1995, with projections that the ratio will further decline to 2:1 by 2020.

The labor market, which grew at approximately 1.2 percent a year in the 1990s, is expected to decrease to 0.8 percent from 2000 to 2010, and 0.4 percent and 0.2 percent in subsequent decades.

These numbers reduce the issue to this: how will we afford to fund the retirements of a growing population and care for an aging population? Are you beginning to get the picture?

2. Perfect Labor Storm Alerts # 460 to # 461

Don't miss day-to-day updates on Perfect Labor Storm. Save the Perfect Labor Storm blog to your favorites.

Fact #460:   Half of new doctors are women, who typically work about 25 percent fewer hours than male doctors.

Fact #461:   Between 2002 and 2012, the number of physician assistants will increase by 49 percent, compared to only a 15 percent increase in U.S. employment. PAs will be the third-fastest growing profession in the U.S. (Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics)

Don't be caught in storm without all the facts. "The Perfect Labor Storm Fact Book: Why Worker Shortages Won't Go Away" is a must-read leading edge forecast that predicts workforce trends for decades to come. Order your copy today - Only $7.95.

3.   10 Reasons Why Performance Reviews Fail

Ask any manager what he hates most about his or her job and you'll likely hear “performance reviews”. For many reasons, these periodic employee evaluations have been done poorly if at all in the past. What follows is a list of the 10 most important reasons why performance reviews fail.

Did you miss last week's The Total View? Click here to read Why Performance Reviews Fail

4.  The Manager's Pocket Guide to Documenting Employee Performance
By Terry L. Fitzwater

This guide will help you document and change unwanted work behaviors before they become issues for termination. It includes information on a four-step progressive discipline process and how to apply it; clarifying gaps in execution vs. gaps in knowledge; behavior modification through corrective action; a process for documenting peformance issues; and a look at the legal framework surrounding discipline.

Order Manager's Pocket Guide to Documenting Employee Performance

5.    New! ASSESS Assessment System

ASSESS is a comprehensive yet flexible web-based assessment system linking assessment to an organization's business objectives. With ASSESS and our complementary SSM software, you can:

      - design job specific competency models

      - create valid hiring assessments and interview guides for your managers, supervisors and professionals

     - tailor developmental assessment feedback reports targeted to organizational success

     - create custom 360 degreee surveys with specific behaviors tied to organizational results

Learn more about ASSESS:

6. The Manager’s Pocket Guide to Workplace Coaching
Daniel A. Feldman, Ph.D

This guide is designed to help people become better managers. When a person is elevated to a management position, it is usually because he or she has done well at mastering the prerequisite technical skills.

Coaching employees to develop their skills helps not only the employee, but also the manager, the team, and the organization.

Order Workplace Coaching:


Ira S. Wolfe. 2005 - All Rights Reserved. Reprints and other distribution by permission only.

Syndication available - call us.