We live complex times. Of course, it is not the first time that it happens to us human beings throughout our existence, nor will it be the last. What is certain is that we have always overcome it and that is the only reason why we are still here today.
When I speak of the complexity of these moments, I am not referring to a situation of war, which also complicates the situation, but to the changes that we are experiencing so rapidly in economic, social, technological, health and even spiritual aspects.
As far as work is concerned, one of the aspects that always worries us is the future and above all “our future”.
Especially in our European environment, the debt of the countries has grown substantially in recent years. Our life expectancy is lengthening every year. Some say that every ten years life expectancy increases by one year. You only have to count how many decades you have lived, then you observe at the time you were born what was the life expectancy at that time. There is a significant drop in birth rates in most Western countries and that makes us see that the costs of our health systems will also increase substantially over the next decade.
There is a good reason for this, the high birth rate that the “boomers” had are those who now begin to have ages in which the requirements of health are increasing.
In short, we have a good combination of factors to ask ourselves how our pension systems are going to be able to bear so many costs and for how long (an average of twenty years or more paying for pensions and attending health costs) with a population in age of contributing less and less.
Although talking about a solution to this problem is to delay retirement, this idea is not socially accepted at all. No one wants the government to come saying to us we have to keep working when we should be retiring. So, this solution may have few signs of being feasible.
Therefore, it seems that the only solution, which is not so immediate but can be accelerated, would be to make work the passion of our workers. Something that keeps them excited every day, they feel like to start the day to face the challenges to be solved. It would be the only way that some more could be able to continue working beyond the current retirement age.
And who can do something about this?
It is the organizations, their governing and management bodies that can make this happen.