KAA-BOOM

About the Book

KAA-BOOM! How to Engage the 50-Plus Worker and Beat the Workforce Crisis

by Barbara Jaworski BSc. M.B.A.

The Canadian economy is about to experience an unprecedented crisis. Over the next few years, millions of Baby Boomers will be leaving the workforce, taking with them decades of irreplaceable experience and knowledge. Making matters worse is that there simply won't be enough younger skilled workers available to fill the void. And all this will be happening at a time of increased global competition when companies need to attract and retain the best and brightest employees.

So why aren't more organizations preparing for this talent crunch? Jaworski examines corporate roadblocks to effective human resource practice, current labour and demographic trends, and case studies of winners of the Best Employers Award for 50 Plus Canadians who have tapped into the potential of the mature workforce. Her insights provide a new game plan for government, organizations and workers to revolutionize their workplace by engaging the total labour pool. This handbook includes the Workplace Institute Engagement Model for 50 Plus Workers™

About the Author

Barbara Jaworski, founder of the Workplace Institute, is Canada's leading expert on the 50-plus workforce. Highly regarded as a human resources consultant, she specializes in the fields of employee engagement, work-life and organizational health and productivity. Over the years she has developed innovative programs and services for more than 2100 organizations in Canada and globally.

Most recently she has developed the annual Best Employers Award for 50 Plus Canadians™, now going into its fourth year, as well as the annual Summit on the Mature Workforce. These nonprofit initiatives are coordinated through the Workplace Institute, an organization that partners with others to research and share best practices in the emerging field of mature organizations. Jaworski has also designed and implemented Work Life Solutions - a wide range of programs that comprise one of the most comprehensive and innovative work-life and wellness and disease management services in the industry. In addition, she consults with organizations and helps create integrated, targeted and customized health strategies to address their existing and emerging health and productivity issues. She helps organizations unleash the productivity of 50-plus workers through a number of new and innovative strategies derived from her own and others' latest research. Jaworski currently chairs the U.S.-based annual Alliance of Work-Life Progress Work-Life Innovation Excellence Awards, given to organizations anywhere in the world that display innovation in the creation of work-life and health solutions for their workforce.

She regularly speaks at conferences throughout North America on the topics of the 50-plus workforce, health and productivity, engagement, and work-life stress, and Canada's aging workforce. A frequent contributor to health and benefits publications and journals, she is also consulted by the media and has been quoted extensively in radio, TV and newspapers, including The Globe and Mail.

She lives in Toronto with her husband of 19 years and two teenaged daughters.