Businesses today face serious talent gaps. The share of companies reporting staffing shortages is at an all-time high: 77%. Last fall the United States had 9.5 million unfilled jobs but only 6.5 million unemployed workers. Many open positions demand sophisticated know-how that cannot be supplied by AI or by training new hires. Every day 10,000 Americans reach the traditional retirement age of 65, which exacerbates the problem. Critical skills, experience, and connections can walk out the door with each retirement. The good news is that many older employees want to keep working; in fact, nearly 60% say they're receptive to the idea of working during retirement. It's time for companies to stop overlooking this large, valuable labor pool. Employers need to shed their misconceptions about older workers and take measures to make the most of their experience, creating phased retirement programs, offering refresher courses, and recruiting through retiree networks, among other strategies. Older employees' knowledge can be leveraged through coaching roles, on multigenerational teams, and in institutional systems. But companies will have to work to engage their seasoned staffers, offering them flexibility, the right benefits, and opportunities for connection.

In the continuing quest for business growth, many CEOs are turning to their CIOs and IT organizations because technology is absolutely essential to two compelling sources of growth: innovation and enterprise integration. The speed of innovation often depends on the ability to coordinate across organizational boundaries. Innovations cannot reach a sufficient level of scale and impact unless they are integrated into the larger operations of the corporation. And yet, say recently retired Harvard Business School dean Cash, Oxford dean Earl, and nGenera director of research Morison, the two endeavors remain "unnatural acts": Far too many large businesses are better at stifling innovation than at capitalizing on it, better at optimizing local operations than at integrating them for the good of the enterprise and its customers. To make both pursuits seem more natural, the authors recommend creating two dedicated, IT-powered teams: a distributed innovation group (DIG) and an enterprise integration group (EIG). The DIG serves as the center of expertise for innovation techniques, considers new uses for technology already being developed inside the company, looks for new developments outside the company, and provides experts for internal innovation initiatives. The EIG selects the most promising from among competing integration projects, provides resources to give them a strong start, and then folds them into the operating model of the enterprise. Without such agencies, the authors maintain, innovation and integration won't spread far enough or fast enough throughout a large organization to keep pace with the smaller, younger, more technology-based competitors to which innovation and integration come much more naturally.

They make up more than half your workforce. They work longer hours than anyone else in your company. From their ranks come most of your top managers. They're your mid-career employees, the solid citizens between the ages of 35 and 55 whom you bank on for their loyalty and commitment. And they're not happy. In fact, they're burned out, bored, and bottlenecked, new research reveals. Only 33% of the 7,700 workers the authors surveyed feel energized by their work; 36% say they're in dead-end jobs. One in three is not satisfied with his or her job. One in five is looking for another. Welcome to middlescence. Like adolescence, it can be a time of frustration, confusion, and alienation. But it can also be a time of self-discovery, new direction, and fresh beginnings. Today, millions of mid-career men and women are wrestling with middlescence--looking for ways to balance work, family, and leisure while hoping to find new meaning in their jobs. The question is: Will they find it in your organization or elsewhere? Companies are ill-prepared to manage middlescence because it is so pervasive, largely invisible, and culturally uncharted. That neglect is bad for business: Many companies risk losing some of their best people or--even worse--ending up with an army of disaffected people who stay. The best way to engage middlescents is to tap into their hunger for renewal and help them launch into more meaningful roles. Perhaps managers can't grant a promotion to everyone who merits one in today's flat organizations, but you may be able to offer new training, fresh assignments, mentoring opportunities, even sabbaticals or entirely new career paths within your own company. Millions of mid-career men and women would like nothing better than to convert their restlessness into fresh energy. They just need the occasion--and perhaps a little assistance--to unleash and channel all that potential.