New Week, New Headlines: Where are the Moral Leaders & The Silver Tsunami Is Coming

Happy March Friends!

We're back with three topics this week! Here's what we're jamming about:

Topic 1: Where Are The Moral Leaders?
We dive into the complexities of moral leadership, a hot topic brought into sharper focus by a HOW Institute study covered in HR Dive. We shed light on the growing disconnect between leaders' actions and the ethical framework employees yearn for, emphasizing why navigating this leadership chasm is critical for any organization's longevity.

Topic 2:  The Silver Tsunami Is Coming
When the 'silver tsunami' comes crashing down, workplaces everywhere will feel the impact.  We're seeing a staggering 2.7 million more retirees stepping back than anticipated, sparking discussions about stock markets, burnout, and the shifting landscapes of corporate pensions. It's a wave that's reshaping the workforce.   We referenced these links: 

• An Unanticipated Retirement Wave is Happening Right Now in the U.S.
• Another ‘Great Retirement’ Wave Hits the US After Stocks Rally
• 2024 Marks the Beginning of “Peak 65”, as More Americans Reach Retirement Age Than Ever Before–and it’s not Slowing Down for a While

Topic 3:  Ruth Gottesman is a Bad Ass Woman.
We love when people use their money to do a lot of good. 

Disclaimer: This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered professional advice. We are not responsible for any losses, damages, or liabilities that may arise from the use of this podcast. The views expressed in this podcast may not be those of the host or the management.

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Transcript

Mel: 0:00

2024 marks the beginning of peak 65, or what some are calling the silver tsunami Do you know what that is?

Francesca: 0:08

Oh fuck, yeah, dude, it's like I'm like silver tsunami is my new favorite term ever I have a friend. She would always talk about a silver fox. I love it, does it have to do with hair Does?

Mel: 0:18

it have to do with hair. Shout out Anderson Cooper, the original silver fox. It is so, yeah, hello friend. Hello friend, this is your work. Friends, I'm Mel and I'm Francesca, and we're your two HR friends with no filter getting you through the workshop. How are you, mel? I'm doing well. How are you doing?

Francesca: 0:54

Doing well, doing well.

Mel: 0:56

Yeah, what's going on in Portland.

Francesca: 0:58

It's snowing here. What's so funny is we live up a thousand sheep from the downtown Portland and it rains down there and it's frozen up. Here it's finally melting, but yeah, we've had snow all weekend.

Mel: 1:12

When I visited you and experienced the different weathers, like the mullet of neighborhoods where you've got the party on the hill and then like business on the hill party on the ground, or whatever.

Francesca: 1:21

We have this in San Francisco too, like these ideas of microclimates where you can drive not even a mile, yeah it is. It's really cool. It's also just. I have no concept of what the weather is in Portland, because how do you dress? Yeah, like freaking Elsa up here. So, yeah, it's good, it's beautiful, it's beautiful. But yeah, what would you do this weekend?

Mel: 1:40

I watched the octopus murder documentary on Netflix man. I'm not a huge conspiracy theorist believer, but it was intense. We left confused, so it was really good. It was really good, highly recommend it. And then today it is sunny, the grass looks a little greener. I saw some tulips trying to pop out, so I got excited for spring. Yeah.

Francesca: 2:10

I have been starting to paint my toenails hot pink and listen to summer music. I have a Spotify summer mix because I'm just like I'm fun. Yeah, I'm ready for it. I'm ready for summer hit.

Mel: 2:20

Yeah, I got mixed man.

Francesca: 2:21

Oh, I will, yeah, for sure. Oh, my god, there is this amazing Hold on this song freaking on repeat. It is hooped up. And return of the Mac. Oh, mixed, ok, holy shit, yes, just say it's the 2024 summer jam.

Mel: 2:38

There you go. Cannot go wrong with return of the Mac.

Francesca: 2:41

This one's just a jam. It's a jam, yeah, it's a jam, I love it.

Mel: 2:46

So we're here with New Week, New Headlines and, Francesca, what are you talking about today?

Francesca: 2:51

I want to talk about the decline of moral leadership. Employees say they want more of it. Ceos aren't giving it to them. Want to talk about it?

Mel: 2:59

What do you talk about? Yeah, hot topic. I am talking about the unanticipated retirement wave that's happening right now in the US.

Francesca: 3:08

Oh, unanticipated, yes, Interesting word. Ok, I'm curious, I'm curious, and at the end can we celebrate Ruth Gottzman.

Mel: 3:17

Yes, let's do it.

Francesca: 3:18

I just got to talk about her, love her.

Mel: 3:20

Love her and Happy Women's History Month.

Francesca: 3:23

Happy Women's History Month. We've got a lot of history we do. We women, we're magic MUSIC. I'll start with an article that was in HRDive and it's a study from the Howe Institute. What they were looking at is the state of moral leadership, and what they're finding is that moral leadership has evolved from a worthy pursuit, not just something that we say we want to achieve, but one that is actually a critical survival skill, and what I want to talk about is what is it? What is the issue here in terms of the size of the disconnect between employees leaders, and why we should be focusing on it, because there's a pretty massive benefit to focusing on moral leadership.

Mel: 4:10

Yeah, I like it and I'm going to go out on a limb here. I've not yet heard the term moral leadership, but when I think about that I think it's likely table stakes leading with morale and seeking accountability, or just having the best interest of humans at the heart of things.

Francesca: 4:28

But, anyway, interesting. Yeah, you would think of table six, but it's not. And it's also not anything political necessarily either. Some people might think, oh, is this more like family values type of thing?

Mel: 4:39

No, it's not.

Francesca: 4:40

It's very simplest form. Moral leadership involves putting principles and values before self-interest, extending trust to colleagues rather than micromanaging them, listening and learning from perspectives that challenge one views and assumptions, and what it's trying to do is really make sure that it is fostering a culture of accountability, of trust and engagement. But it's interesting to think about why. Why?

Mel: 5:06

is this on the rise now? I'm going to go out on a wild guess and have a hypothesis. The landscape has not been really rosy these days, if you think about some of the things that we've seen in the news just in the past two weeks, between the layoffs that have happened at Nike and what is it Since then Coming?

Mel: 5:27

out saying, oh, my team takes accountability, but there's no explanation around what that accountability is. Or the folks at Vice laying off all of their employees in a call but cutting that call short and not giving them the humanity of a discussion because they didn't like they were using a thumbs down emoji.

Francesca: 5:45

It's pretty dire out there, right now let's take the Vice one, for example. Failure point number one is that we're on a Zoom call and we're doing this in mass Mass call. Yeah, failure point number two is that we're reacting to an emoji.

Mel: 6:01

Yeah, an emoji Like allow people their feelings.

Francesca: 6:05

Yeah, a thousand percent. When we look at moral leaders in action, they're accountable for themselves and their teams and they show that accountability. They demonstrate their accountability to your very good point. They don't just say it, there's evidence of that. They find ways to make amends when mistakes occur, such as apologizing or fostering environments of accountability as well, like once the last time you saw a CEO say I completely biffed on this and here's what I'm going to do to make it right. Yeah, yeah, brickets. I know we've seen it periodically. I'm sure it's happening, but it's not the norm. It's absolutely not the norm, but it needs to be, because moral leadership impacts everything from team trust to employee loyalty, and what I'll talk about a little bit later is to the bottom line.

Mel: 6:57

I believe it, that call that I attended on layoffs, the bounce back rate for that and how it went from 12 to 18 months and now it's 18 to 24 months or just never recovered because of how it's been handled and it's likely because of this approach.

Francesca: 7:15

Absolutely. I want to give three stats that validate your point. One from the Howe Institute employees say that only one in 10 CEOs and only 13% of managers consistently demonstrate behaviors associated with world leadership. One in 10. Yeah, that's low. It's low and only 13% of managers. And it goes back to the thing that you and I were talking about a couple of months ago, mal, which is the way we develop managers, the way we develop leaders even five years ago, will not work anymore, it will not cut it.

Francesca: 7:51

It doesn't. It doesn't because people are needing something different from their leaders 100%.

Mel: 7:57

The world's changed, the world's shifted, values have changed, the way we work has changed and we need to change with it.

Francesca: 8:05

The world has changed, even in the four years. Let me give an example of this. When we think about employee demands for moral leadership from CEOs and managers, that's on the rise as well. In 2020, the percentage of employees who believe it's more urgent than ever. This is the way they framed this question that moral leadership is more urgent than ever. Four years ago, it was 86% of employees. Today, in 2024, a tenth 93%, which is a pretty big jump up.

Francesca: 8:34

That's massive. Yeah, 93% of your employees say this is urgent. And then what we're looking at the way leaders have come through these layoffs, for example is the complete antithesis of it. Right, there's a pretty big ass disconnect. And the last stat that I thought was super fascinating there's a consultant from Challenger Gray in Christmas, which, by the way, I love the name Christmas Right, it's kind of nice. They did a study last year and said that HR professionals and business leaders reported a declining trust in company leaders. Hr professionals and business leaders reported a declining trust. This is an employee, this is HR and leaders.

Mel: 9:14

I believe that we've been in HR, and how many times have you recommended? Hey, that's going to go over like a fart in church, so maybe we should look at it a different way and then shut down.

Francesca: 9:26

Many Right, many I guarantee you. There's multiple people listening to this that are like every day the stat blew me away HR professionals and those business leaders have a declining trust in company leaders. 56% of them had a declining trust a couple of months ago, in February. That's up to 65%. That's a massive jump. It's a massive jump in just a few months, yeah, and in years, in a few months. They are saying it's an efficacy of leadership. It's inconsistency and poor communication of CEOs. I believe it. We need to change the way that we're leading and that we're managing our people. There's one last thing I want to talk about here, which is employees don't have a lot of faith in their leaders. Deloitte came out with a study last year that was talking about how leaders are struggling to identify what they should prioritize and work. There's an inefficacy of leaders, and what they were talking about is less than a quarter of employees said that they believe that their leaders have the capacity to lead through today's distractions. Less than a quarter of employees believe their leaders have the capacity.

Mel: 10:42

I mean holy shit.

Francesca: 10:44

Yeah, and quite honestly, from a business perspective, there is a reality here that a lot of these leaders have not led through anything like this. They don't have the capabilities to lead through it and they're reverting back to a command and control type of leadership as opposed to what employees need.

Mel: 11:02

Absolutely it's not going over. Well, Clearly it's not.

Francesca: 11:07

No one has led through what we're about to go through no one. And the way that we come through this is looking at how do we take the knowledge of the collective to get through it, not stay in your echo chambers of the C-suite or the boards you got to get out of that.

Mel: 11:25

You got to get out of it. You've got to talk to your people from the entry level employee all the way up and really understand your people and really tapping into those human components of work yeah, tapping into our humanity at work is going to be more important than ever.

Francesca: 11:42

Yeah, and here it comes, mm-hmm.

Mel: 11:50

The benefits and comp editor for Shurm online, catherine Meyer, came out with the article. There's an unanticipated retirement wave happening right now in the US. So the US currently has 2.7 million more retirees than predicted Holy shit. According to the Bloomberg reports, this is up by 80% from six months ago, when there were roughly 1.5 million more retirees than anticipated. So this number is growing. By contrast, prior to the pandemic, there often were fewer retirees than expected. You remember this right.

Francesca: 12:35

All the discussion around people aren't retiring.

Mel: 12:38

What does that mean inside organizations? What does that mean for development and growth for other people who are coming up? What does that mean? How is this going to impact our organizations if people don't retire? This is important for a few reasons, but I want to get into why this might be happening. First One we've been talking about this right the stock market improving, cooling inflation so people feel more comfortable retiring. But there are other factors at play negative workplace factors like RTO mandates, people who are close to retirement age are just-.

Francesca: 13:17

Screw it, I'm out Done.

Mel: 13:18

Yeah, I don't need this. Yeah, trust me or you don't. They've been working forever, so you don't trust them. Okay, bye. Yeah, rising rates of burnout. Affleck, the insurance company-. Affleck, did I snuddy?

Francesca: 13:30

I love that. Where's Doug the?

Mel: 13:32

Dougman Affleck found that 57% of workers are experiencing at least moderate levels of burnout 57%. So they're just walking around always managing some level of burnout. Not healthy, right? Not part of the SHIRM article, but a recent article by the Motley Fool. They said 2024 marks the beginning of peak 65, or what some are calling the silver tsunami. Do you know?

Francesca: 14:02

what that is. Oh fuck, yeah, dude, it's like like the silver tsunami is my new favorite term ever. I remember Ida. Fred and she would always talk about a silver fox. I love it. Does it have to do with hair?

Mel: 14:13

Mal, does it have to do with hair? Shout out Anderson Cooper, the original silver fox. It is so-.

Francesca: 14:17

Yeah.

Mel: 14:19

So silver tsunami. Essentially, more Americans are reaching retirement age than ever before. According to the Alliance for Lifetime Income, the period between 2024 and 2027 will see record levels of Americans turning 65, what they're calling peak 65 zone. By 2030, six years from now, all in all caps, all baby boomers will have turned 65, six years from now. So when peak 65 folks all those baby boomers entered the labor market in 1980, 60% of private sector workers relied on pensions as their only retirement, compared to only 4% in 2020. So what's surprising about this wave? It comes amidst a number of dire retirement stats. So in 2023, both workers and retirees confidence in having enough money to live comfortably throughout retirement fell to the lowest rate since the Great Recession, dropping to 64% from 73% in 2022 among active workers and dropping to 73% from 77% in 2022 from retirees. That's according to the Employee Benefit Research Institute and Recent Greenwald Research. Sky High Inflation, which is getting better. Cooling inflation is happening. The Sky High Inflation, the pandemic, caused a significant number due to Sky High Inflation.

Francesca: 15:52

I mean, listen someone that could be inflation in 2023, sold it going through the roof stock market super mercurial, I get that, but those are big swings, those are big swing numbers. Yeah, wait, okay, huge yeah.

Mel: 16:08

Huge too. And then, with the Sky High Inflation that we have been experiencing, the pandemic caused a number, a significant number of employees to turn to their 401k funds for help. Nearly 30% of workers tapped into their retirement savings over the past 12 months to pay for short-term expenses, according to their Better Minute Work Survey.

Francesca: 16:33

Yeah, we 30% of workers took out money early from their 401k to pay for short-term expenses due to the Sky High Inflation. That's. I think about that too, because when you think about when you early withdraw from a 401K, you're going to take a 10% hit. You're going to get taxed on that. At least at 20% You're going to get hit. So you're basically losing a ton of money doing that Like you've got to be in really you're just buying over a sprint mode.

Mel: 17:04

Yeah, that's right, it's not sprint mode. You're borrowing from yourself, so you don't see it. It's the lesser of two evils that you think it is but it has the same impact.

Mel: 17:14

Yeah, 30%, okay, 30% of workers. And then, outside of this, I saw a recent Barron's retirement report by Elizabeth O'Brien and she said that this past week they saw two very different takes on the nation's retirement security feelings. The Delady released a report noting a 20% increase in 401K millionaires. Senator Bernie Sanders held a hearing to decry the demise of corporate pensions and the lack of retirement savings among nearly half of American households. And they're both right, yeah.

Francesca: 17:50

Yeah, the both of you too.

Mel: 17:51

There's a lot happening in this space right now. Barron's is hosting a roundtable on this, march 5th this week, so if you're interested you can check that out. So it's just a lot of interesting stuff happening in this space. Bottom line we're going to have a massive wave of retirees coming up. How this impacts the workplace. Why this is important Loss of institutional knowledge when people retire.

Mel: 18:16

So if you don't have systems in place to capture that knowledge, you don't have succession planning in place, screw it. So I have to get down that, if that's not something you've been focused on within your organization. The inability for employers to plan for employees' retirement. So with this massive wave that's unprecedented in one of the articles they noted organizations are just saying it's impossible to even plan now for employees' retirement because this is so unexpected. The wave of retirees that are happening. And then the cost of replacing that gap in talent can be significant because supply is trailing demand, causing the cost of replacement to increase significantly. Good news for employers, good news for employees because there's more opportunity out there. But this is really going to impact businesses.

Francesca: 19:04

Yeah, the thing that I love for everyone to think about is the retirement age in this country is going to increase to 72. Most of the people listening to this podcast right now will be working clear into their 70s. We will be insane, yeah, but think about this. People used to retire at 50. Oh, I know, and, as you, should.

Mel: 19:24

Middle age is 35. Sorry everybody, Middle age is 35.

Francesca: 19:31

I know why you got to be a buzzkill, mel, sorry. I know, but it is, and it is.

Mel: 19:37

It is. It's why I'm so excited about younger generations coming up and wanting to change things because you shouldn't have to be working until you're 72 to survive and you shouldn't be in your 70s in survival mode.

Francesca: 19:54

That's the key for me. It's like in front of my net, like he's. I never want to retire. I love the game yeah.

Mel: 19:59

If you love the interaction. I feel that way too sometimes. Right, I'm rabbi and I were talking about this last night when I was sharing my research with him and I'm like I don't know that I'll ever really fully retire, because I just love engaging and doing different things. I'll be a greeter somewhere or like working in an art class something, anything right? Yeah, I think there's, but it shouldn't be because of survival mode.

Francesca: 20:20

That's the issue for me, that's the concern. It's because you just feel so burnout that you're like I can't even anymore. Because folks that have a lot of experience in the workplace have a lot to offer, a lot to offer. Organizations have a lot to benefit, and the more flexible we can be with maybe to somebody that wants to work part-time or they still want to work full-time, there is room and need for everybody at the table. So the fact that it's burnout and the scarcity of funds, that to me, is just we got to fade out because it's only going to be worse.

Mel: 20:52

People's values have changed and shifted since the pandemic. I don't know if I was in their age group right now and close to retirement. Are you sure those stories all the time about someone who worked until they're 68 and then, two weeks after retiring, drop dead because of stress and whatever?

Francesca: 21:13

It's 65-so-lion You've got a lot.

Mel: 21:14

It's super-lion.

Francesca: 21:16

I know, right now 35 is middle age, but a lot of futurists are thinking GenoX will probably see people living in 120. Oh, I believe it.

Mel: 21:24

So like you've got some runway, you've got some time there's some living to do but you should never have to be in survival mode, so something's got to give Get busy, get busy dying. Yeah, I was just shushing, but yeah, so one thing to watch over the next six years right.

Francesca: 21:45

There are two people that I think about a lot.

Mel: 21:47

One is Mackenzie Bezos who has given away her money. I love it.

Francesca: 21:51

Yeah, I was wondered with Mackenzie Bezos what is it like? Is it strings attached? Blah, blah, blah, blah blah. There's a theater in Chicago where I follow. They were talking about how they got a phone call from her trust and it was literally like we just want to give you $2 million, no strings attached. And it was $2 million, no strings attached. Amazing, yeah. And when you think about having billions of dollars, people make choices. You can make choices to buy a super yacht. You can make choices to buy a football team, a basketball team, a newspaper, and I also love when people are making choices to really impact people's lives and their careers, and the latest of this is Ruth Gottman.

Mel: 22:36

I'm sure you've heard this story I have. It's such a good, it's such a feel good. I've watched the video clip over and over again this weekend.

Francesca: 22:43

So smart in terms of endowments when you think about this woman basically is going to be paying for med school in perpetuity for everyone at the Bronx Medical School, which, by the way, it's going to be fricking impossible to get into that. Truly it's not that bad, but yeah, let's do more of this, friends. Yeah, let's do more of this. That is life changing, not for one person, not for two, but for multiple thousands of people, and I just love to see it. I fucking love to see it.

Mel: 23:14

Yeah.

Francesca: 23:14

Given in a way, I love it. Yeah, yeah, I love it. So Vakenzi Bezos, ruth Gottman, kudos, yeah, given in a way, love it, love it. Giraffe money, all right.

Mel: 23:30

That is the end of our new week, new Headlines. Folks. We have a special guest joining us this Thursday. Our upcoming episode, jen Fisher from Deloitte. She is the chief human sustainability officer there. She's going to be joining us to talk about the state of well-being in workplace and the future of what that looks like. So we're super excited to have her here to talk with us and stay tuned to hear more Speaking of badass women.

Francesca: 24:00

Truly yeah.

Mel: 24:02

Nice Love to hear it. Women's History Month is a good month.

Francesca: 24:05

And thanks so much for joining us today and subscribe. Wherever you listen to podcasts, you can come over and say hi to us on the TikToks and LinkedIn community. Hit us up at yourworkfriendscom. We're always posting stuff on there and if you found this episode helpful, share with your work friends. Thanks, friend, thanks friend. Thank you for watching.