How Central MN Employers Can Maximize Experienced Employees

Experienced employees can be beneficial to Central Minnesota employers.  Gail Cruikshank is the Talent Director for the Greater St. Cloud Development Corporation.  She highlights some key ways employers can use experienced employees to benefit the entire staff.

Who are our Experienced Workforce:
● By definition - experienced worker means a worker who has learned the basic elements or requirements of the work to be performed.
● Typically we tend to think of these employees as our “mature” or “older” workforce - based on either years of experience or age.

Why are they important in the workforce?
● Bring/Offer lots of institutional knowledge and experiences to share
● Improves company performance by continuing to develop experienced employees
● Enhances company culture resulting in better customer service experience
● Allows employees to continue with doing meaningful work
● Wonderful mentors teaching critical information/experiences
● Many times employees simply need to or want to work less. Adjusting schedules to allow this supports filling shifts and elevating you to an employer of choice.

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Benefits to offer our experienced/older workforce:
● Reduced hours ● Flexibility in scheduling based on employee desires and company needs ● Intentionality in information/training sharing with new/younger employees ● Experienced employees are usually well established in the community and can be one of your largest promoters of your company/services (or bashers if they feel unvalued) ● Phase out of work plan

Keys to remember:
● Everyone brings value to the organization.
● Your business can’t afford to let the institutional knowledge leave your organization so formally planning for an employee’s transition/departure from employment is key. In addition identifying who will assume their responsibilities is critical for an easy transition.

Bottom Line:
Building a strong collaboration of all team members secures institutional knowledge for the continued growth of your company but also provides strong mentorship invaluable for all ages of your employees.

If you'd like to learn about job openings in the St. Cloud area go to stcloudshines.com.  If you'd like to listen to my conversation with Gail Cruikshank, it is available below.