Outlined here are some questions to ask yourself as you craft your resolutions for the year.

As a person

• Is there enough balance in your life? Have you made time for the important things—faith, family, and friends?
• Are you as healthy as you want to be? What do you need to do to get to your goal?
• Are you feeding your soul? Are you investing any of your time and resources in activities that renew and refresh?
• Do you volunteer your time and energy for a worthwhile cause? Are you making the world a better place because you’re here? How could you use your talents to help your community?
• As you’re adding “to do” items to your list, what are you resolving not to do? What do you need to quit doing?

As an HR professional

• Have you committed to life-long learning? What are you doing to improve your knowledge and skills? What books will you read this year? What courses will you attend?
• Do you need the help of others as you grow and develop in your career? Should you enlist the help of a mentor to support your growth?
• Are you as bold as you need to be? Are you challenging the status quo when you believe there is a better way? Are you doing the right things?
• Are you leading or just following? Do you have a vision for your organization as a great place to work? How are you making that vision a reality?
• How are you helping your organization achieve its goals and objectives? What will you do differently to help move your organization toward its goals?

It’s time to make your plans!

"Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood...Make big plans, aim high in hope and work."

Daniel H. Burnham (1846 - 1912)

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Intergenerational issues: Managers may resent working for younger or older bosses or have conflicts with differing value systems and work ethics in workers of different generations.

_____ Generational issues: Getting age-diverse teams to work together.

Older-worker recruitment: Some employers need to reach out to older workers and other nontraditional market segments as a means of meeting their staffing needs.

_____ Are you planning for your retirees departure?

_____ How to recruit mature workers: Messages for effective targeting.

_____ How to recruit mature workers: Activities and partners for effective targeting.

Retraining issues: As the technology in the workplace changes, and as organizations must change to meet increased productivity and efficiency demands, employees of all ages will need retraining to remain competitive in today's workplace.

_____ How to train older workers: What's the same, what's different?

_____ Older workers and technology: Can you teach older dogs newer tricks?

"Overqualified applicants": Some candidates will have strong backgrounds that may make them appear to be "overqualified," but employers who toss these applicants aside without asking the right questions risk eliminating excellent candidates and/or an age discrimination suit.

_____ Selection issues in an aging workforce: What is "overqualified"?

Retirement planning and pension/retirement benefits issues: As employees age, they need information about their retirement options, including work options such as rehearsal or phased retirement.

_____ Educating employees about retirement options.

_____ Designing benefits for an aging workforce.

Flexible scheduling and care-giving issues: Workers of all ages are looking for ways to balance work and life obligations. Many older workers are members of the "sandwich" generation and must provide care for parents and children, and even grandparents and grandchildren.

_____ Flexible scheduling options.

_____ Job sharing.

_____ Sabbaticals.

_____ Traditional and nontraditional part time options.

_____ Telecommuting options.

_____ Phased and rehearsal retirement.

_____ Caring for care-giving employees.

Age discrimination: Currently, over 50% of the workforce is covered by the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA).

_____ Myths and realities about the aging workforce.

_____ What is age discrimination?

_____ Eliminating ageism in the workplace.

_____ The intersection of ADEA and ADA.

Reverse mentoring: Older employees may need assistance in understanding technology and may benefit from being paired with younger cohorts.

_____ Reverse mentoring.

Lost knowledge: As older employees retire, some employers are discovering they are losing valuable institutional knowledge and competencies.

_____ Managing knowledge retention issues.

Employee retention: Keeping valuable employees will become an even more important issue as employers deal with worker shortages.

_____ Does your organization's culture support older workers?

_____ Education to retain older workers.

Cathy Fyock, CSP, SPHR, is an employment strategist—helping organizations develop strategies to recruit and retain top talent in an aging and changing marketplace. For nearly 20 years she has combined her knowledge of work-force issues and her talents as a speaker to provide innovative and inspirational learning events. She has helped organizations attract top talent, reduce turnover, and improve productivity in a volatile labor market.

Praise for Cathy’s programs

"Cathy Fyock developed a three-day selection course for us at Bridgestone/Firestone, and has been instrumental in delivering the pilot course and subsequent train-the-trainer courses for our zone management. Cathy has impressed us by combining our own ideas about what was needed in the training, and her own experience in this field. As a result, she has created an exciting course that specifically addresses our needs and is helping us to select better candidates, which we believe will ultimately result in more productive and loyal employees. We highly recommend Cathy as an instructional designer, as an employment strategist, and as an effective trainer."