Alberta Business Marketing

According to The Vancouver Province, 2017 will be a watershed year – that’s the year when retirement will have shrunk baby boomers to 25 percent of Canada’s workforce from their current 50 percent share. That’s also the year when Generation Y will account for half of the country’s workforce and the Y-ers may look at the employer and decide whether they’d rather work somewhere else.

The tightness in the labour market will force employers to scrutinize their own brands. An employer brand, perceived by current and potential employees, has three essential elements: it must have a strategy to attract new employees; it must provide a workplace experience that is appealing to retain current employees; and it must boost staff productivity by ‘engaging’ employees.

In other words, companies need a genuine face and touch of charisma to attract employees. If employees trust that the company is doing everything in their best interest, as well as practising two-way transparency by sharing information and seeking feedback, they will, in turn, give back to the company.

As marketers, we talk about corporate brands all the time. But now is the high time to apply the same marketing discipline to employer brands.

Tags: Branding
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Economic recessions are not that bad after all! According to a recent article in The Globe and Mail, U.S. research has indicated that increases in state-level jobless rates are associated with a drop in mortality rates. This research has now been Canadianized and the conclusions are the same.

New findings show that a one-percentage-point increase in the jobless rate cuts the predicted mortality rate of people in their 30s by approximately two percent. It also lowers the death rate for women close to retirement. Economic professors at Wilfrid Laurier University pointed out that the data suggests “a strong relationship between unemployment and mortality rates of middle-aged Canadians – in other words, baby boomers.

After analysing Statistics Canada mortality rates from 1977 to 2009 along with unemployment rates, they’ve concluded there are differences in conclusions between the U.S. and Canadian numbers. South of the border, recessions tend to cut mortality rates of infants and seniors, but in Canada, the effect is more pronounced among the middle-aged.

It’s surprising to me that physical health sometimes improves during recessions. Smoking and obesity decline during temporary economic downturns, while leisure-time physical activity increases. Heavy drinkers tend to reduce alcohol consumption and people also tend to sleep more when the economy is tanking.

And this is also true outside North America. A 2004 German study found mortality drops in recessions due to decreases in cardiovascular disease, pneumonia, car accidents and suicides. Among 23 OECD countries, deaths tend to rise when economic times are good. The Canadian results seem to parallel in conclusions – individuals tend to take on behaviours that are harmful to their health when economic conditions are good.

So in spite of the doom and gloom about recessions, marketers in the health and wellness sector should perhaps leverage economic downturns to focus on further improving the physical and mental well-being of people.

Lina Ko

Tags: Strategy, This and That
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A Toronto Star article recently pointed out that even in retirement, Venus and Mars speak different languages.

Research by both Bank of Montreal and RBC confirms men and women want different things in retirement. Women focus on expanding their horizons and personal growth. They want to take self-improvement courses. Men, on the other hand, look for rest and relaxation in retirement and want to go golfing. When they retire, men want to travel and spend time with their wives, while women want to spend more time with their friends, their adult children and also the husband.

Because of a longer life expectancy – 83 years for Canadian men and 86 for women, everybody is expecting to live at least 10-15 years longer than their previous generation. While about 40 percent of Canadian women will not celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary because of divorce, women’s self-earned wealth is increasing even though they may not be able to rely financially on their spouses.

Even if the marriages last, women tend to marry older men and outlive their husbands. So many of them might be recipients of a lump-sum of money. So one way or another, women in retirement nowadays should be better off than their mothers a generation ago.

However, the surveys indicate that both men and women retirees are concerned about maintaining their standard of living in the future. Retirees are marginally more likely to be worried about healthcare than those still working. An RBC poll about savings paints a grim picture for many because many Canadians are having difficulty meeting their savings goals. About 27 percent have reduced the amount they are saving since the 2008 market crash, and only 12 percent have managed to increase their savings.

No wonder most financial institutions are offering free courses for retiring baby boomers. Taking control of your financial situation is the key to fulfilling the retirement dream for both men and women boomers.

Lina Ko

Tags: Strategy
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According to the Toronto Star, the hottest jobs next year are going to be those which cater to the older population. At a time when unemployment still remains high, medical positions are in hot demand.

As the massive baby boomer generation transitions into retirement, the medical-pharmaceutical sector is poised for significant job growth.

In November, the health care industry recorded gains of 120,000 positions, up 6.1 per cent, compared with the same period a year earlier, according to Statistics Canada.

That's one of the highest employment-growth rates of any sector.

Recruitment experts predicted that health care positions - home health care, registered nurses, personal aides, physiotherapists, occupational therapists - are all in great demand because of the aging population.

At the same time, most professional jobs and trades face a glut of retiring boomers and a big gap remains as the older workers are leaving.

As we move into the new year, the advice for students is for them to enroll in courses catering to the aging population - there will be plenty of jobs associated with taking care of the old and senile waiting for these young people to graduate from proper training in this sector.

Tags: Strategy
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According to veteran arts journalist Bob Mersereau, who recently compiled The Top 100 Canadian Singles for his book of the same name, baby boomers’ music dominated most of the top 100 songs. He polled 800 critics, celebrities, industry leaders, and music fans of all ages and the results all leaned heavily on boomer classics such as The Guess Who, Neil Young, Gordon Lightfoot and Anne Murray. According to the 49-year-old music writer, it’s a common phenomenon, with a downloading culture that renders release dates irrelevant and TV shows such as Glee and movie soundtracks such as Iron Man 2 reviving classic rock tunes for a new generation.

Younger colleagues of mine, some of whom are half my age, adore the same music I listened to during my younger days because they grew up listening to their parents’ favourite music before having any preferences of their own. Although one might agree that music written in the past three decades might have been more inspiring than what’s being played on the radio or TV or iTunes nowadays, I cannot but agree with Joel Rubinoff of the Waterloo Region Record that we have to support and recognize some of the current younger songwriters and musicians. Apart from Alanis Morissette and Feist who were given their due recognitions, newcomers like Drake, K’naan, Nikkii Yanofsky were neglected.

I often go out of the way to support younger musicians because while oldies are great, we need to encourage the next generation of recording artists to break barriers and be innovative. That’s why the Rolling Stones probably have the same share of my leisure time as Amy Winehouse, Joss Stone, Sophie Milman, Black Eyed Peas and Robbie Williams. They are not necessarily Canadians all the time, and some of them are not even that young. But if we baby boomers were not open to new song-writing and new genres of music, this world would be a very boring place!

Lina Ko

Tags: Get it off your chest
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