Being Switched ON takes on many forms for people aged over 50, depending on our responsibilities, our interests and our dreams for the decades of healthy living we have ahead of us.

Many of us aged over 50 are business owners and/or managers who are responsible for teams of staff, which is why the Switched ON ones closely follow issues that impact on their business.

A case in point is the Great Resignation. We’ve all heard of it, and some of us are feeling the effects.

As countless commentators have noted, for the first time in generations, it’s labour that now seems to be dictating the terms of their employment. We’re witnessing an historic change that all of us who are Switched ON need to know about.

Don Georgevich is a leading US employment coach. Don is a bestselling author and has helped thousands of people to improve their resumes and their job-interview performances. He’s also an authority on the Great Resignation.

Surprisingly, it turns out the term ‘the Great Resignation’ was coined back 2019 by Texas A&M University professor, Anthony Klotz, so the phenomena pre-dates COVID and is likely to be with us past the pandemic.

Just how impactful the Great Resignation is can be seen in US Department of Labor data that shows a staggering 11-million people quit their jobs between April and June 2021. As Don rightly says, that’s a massive movement in just three months.

That data is no anomaly. A recent Microsoft study of 30,000 staff found 41% are looking for a new job.

Don talks about the variety of motivations driving people to look for new jobs, and it’s a familiar list. His takeaway is that 20 or 30 years ago, staff stayed in their jobs because they didn’t have the choices they do now.

More helpfully, he offers us seven insights that can help owners and managers to engage and retain staff.

Interestingly, only one – improved training and development opportunities – is a direct cost to businesses.

The others are a mix of changes to attitudes and practices that seek to build a trusting, cooperative and flexible work culture, as opposed to one that’s centred on diktat and surveillance.

Just where remuneration fits into the Great Resignation story is likely to be different for different people and in different places, and maybe the money is more important in the US with its notoriously meagre minimum wage.

But there’s no doubt the workplace qualities outlined by Don are likely to feature very highly among the priorities for people aged over 50.

More and more of us want to escape the forced boredom of traditional retirement by continuing in paid work where we can use our skills, our experiences, and our networks to best effect.

What we don’t want, and what we won’t put up with, is misery. People aged over 50 have a multitude of choices to find meaning and satisfaction well beyond the workforce, and the most Switched ON among us will grasp those chances.

People aged over 50 are a vast resource of talent and experience, and it’s the organisations which offer staff the working conditions and pay commensurate with the value of that resource which will  win the war for talent.