Rome has changed, and so shall the Romans.
The last quarter-century professionally has seen a migration of blue-collar workers to white-collar employees.
People and Talent Management was learnt on the streets, executing projects and facing customers, not in classrooms. Senior Positions were earned based on performance rather than academic certificates. It was when an apprentice could one day become the CEO of the organization. These were probably the reminiscence of the Industrial revolution work culture, influenced by the military regime.
Organizations were shaped like a pyramid: many young people at the bottom, a medium number of middle-aged managers, and a few old folks at the top.
The last two decades have seen a few radical changes in the population dynamics.
The first being the shift in the old-to young population ratio. With longer life expectancies and jaw-dropping lower birth rate drop, it is estimated that many countries, by 2100, could see their population significantly shrinking.
The second shift is more high schoolers going for college degrees and looking for white-collar jobs. Thus creating a high demand for hard-hat entry-level blue-collar jobs. In addition to creating a void of the hands-on managerial workforce. The managers who know the how? by actually getting their hands dirty.
The hiring managers shall have to redesign many of their standard recruitment approaches.
Mandatory retirement: Would there be adequately enough trained young people to replace those who leave? The answer may be a "NO."
Linear careers: The typical career path focuses on people constantly moving in power and status over time. This results in a higher workload, responsibility and logically longer hours of work. They are pressurizing the work-life balance of these individuals.
The Recruiting managers are still focused on targeting young hires — the new norm may be splitting time, responsibilities and cost.
