5)Get Serious About Knowledge Retention

For some CIOs, the solution to their staffing worries may be sitting just down the hallway. But few have truly thought ahead about how to keep veteran workers and their wealth of knowledge from walking out the door.

With the boomer generation fast approaching retirement, CIOs need to put such tactics in place to retain valued employees. "More of that is going to be needed," says Northwestern Mutual's Zwieg, who retires this year. "There are different ways to deal with the more mature worker: modified work schedules, different benefit packages, consulting opportunities."

Retention of senior staff is top of mind for Wallace: Half of her IT department is eligible for retirement between 2008 and 2010. And she's got a load of legacy technology work that was never fully documented. To keep those workers in the fold, Wallace makes sure they get the same training, recognition and reward opportunities as everyone else. Mid-career workers and those approaching retirement are sometimes overlooked by managers dazzled by younger hires with the latest skills. This lack of attention can lead to poor morale, a decline in productivity and an exodus of older workers.

"You want every employee to be motivated right up until the day they go," says Wallace. "They may even defer their retirement and hang around a little longer."

Mentoring programs can also be an effective tool to encourage knowledge sharing across generations. But creating an effective mentoring process isn't easy. And it shouldn't be a one-way street. A good program is not just about making sure older workers who understand Cobol pass on that knowledge. Older workers are often interested in learning from their mentees. "They get excited about learning about Java," says Marquette's Kaiser. "They like the challenge. And they want to learn new skills themselves."

Stanley just conducted a two-year pilot mentoring program at Harrah's. "We found that employees who had good experiences working with a team or supervisor were better employees overall," says Stanley.

He says those who participated also came away from the program with a stronger sense of career growth. "We get the biggest juice out of it at the midlevel," notes Stanley. These are workers who "may have thought they have to go into management to move up. Now they realize they can move up on another track."

Retraining and redeployment can also help experienced workers gain new skills and rekindle their passion. Harvey Nash's Behenna has successfully retrained midlevel employees in a host of new areas. "The best success stories have been where we moved people from operational roles into project management. We even took a member of the finance team and turned him into a senior IT manager with profoundly technical responsibility," says Behenna. "Anything is possible. You just have to know your people, keep an open mind and develop their strengths. But it's an investment."

Behenna also offers a range of new work environments to keep people in IT longer, and it's not just for those approaching their golden years. He's made arrangements such as three-day workweeks with adjusted compensation and benefits to keep valuable employees who might otherwise have burned out and left his company - and the IT field - altogether.

"We have several variations of this issue for people on the cusp of leaving, and it's not just age-related," says Behenna. "It's working out well."