Generations and the City Organization

I had the opportunity to attend a conference in Pittsburgh for ICMA (the International City/Council Management Association) in October. This conference is a gathering of thousands of city managers, assistant city managers, and related professionals eager to learn about best practices in other cities and tips to better run their organizations.

ICMA has identified six priorities for its work in the coming years:

• Local Government Leadership
• Next Generation
• Performance Management
• Public Policy
• Sustainable Communities
• Emergency Management

Not surprisingly, these priorities are in line with a lot of communities' priorities as they look ahead. Concern for the "next generation" has become a popular topic in both public entities and private corporations. According to the US Census Bureau, the population 65 and older is projected to grow faster than the total population in every state beginning in 2011. Four years from now, the number of people in this country celebrating their 65th birthday will jump 21 percent, from 2.7 to 3.3 million. This will create a "replacement gap" in the workplace, with more jobs available than people to fill them.

This issue is especially pertinent in the public sector, where many managers and leaders are 5 or 10 years away from retirement. In local government management, the group of young people trained to take their place is far smaller than the number of baby boomers who will turn over executive positions in the next decade.

At ICMA, they've created programs for new and emerging managers and leaders to help address this problem. They also facilitate sessions at the annual conference regarding making the most of having four different generations in the workplace. At the City of West Des Moines, we have taken our own initiatives to address generational gaps and plan for the eventual departure of many of our top level people. In addition to a reading circle featuring the book "When Generations Collide," which provided recommendations to employees regarding relationships and team building across generations, the City has created a Succession Planning team to look at our process of preparing leaders to fill the shoes of future retirees. I think these steps will help keep us ahead of the game within our organization.

I will address the other priorities established by ICMA, and how they relate to our City, in subsequent blog entries. Thanks for reading. I'd be interested to know what kind of initiatives your employers have taken (in the public or private sector--we are all facing the same problem) to motivate and relate to employees from every generation and plan for the retirement of the baby boom generation.