The Wave of Retirements

The Retirement Wave: Why Smart Talent and Succession Management Matters Now

In the German and Austrian industrial sectors, the coming years will be marked by a massive demographic shift: the baby boomer generation is entering retirement. In Austria alone, around 1.3 million people will leave the workforce by 2030 (Statistik Austria), and in Germany, the number exceeds 12 million (Destatis). Many of these individuals hold leadership roles, are knowledge carriers, and are key personalities within their organizations.

This trend coincides with an already strained labor market, further intensified by digitalization, technological change, and geopolitical uncertainties. Industrial companies are thus facing a dual challenge: maintaining performance while shaping the future.

What Companies Are Facing

The impact of the retirement wave is far-reaching:

• Loss of experiential knowledge due to the simultaneous departure of long-serving employees

• Vacancies in key positions that cannot be filled internally at short notice

• Leadership gaps if age-related exits are not anticipated in time

• Knowledge and culture gaps if informal know-how and established company values are not transferred

According to a Kienbaum study (2023), more than 70% of mid-sized companies report being insufficiently prepared for the succession wave.

Three Strategic Action Areas

Talent Management: Identify and Develop Potential
Future leaders and specialist professionals must be identified and nurtured today. This includes structured potential analyses, development programs, internal career paths, and a culture of continuous feedback and learning.

Targeted talent management not only ensures succession planning but also promotes employee retention—a critical factor in a labor market where skilled professionals increasingly choose where they want to work.

Knowledge Management: Secure Experiential Knowledge
When decades of experience leave a company, the ways in which decisions were made, networks were maintained, or problems were solved are often undocumented. Knowledge management tools, structured handovers, and mentoring models help preserve and actively transfer this knowledge.

Recommended approaches include tandem models pairing outgoing and incoming employees, as well as digital knowledge databases maintained systematically.

Succession Management: Plan Proactively
Effective succession planning is not a one-time reaction but a continuous process. It starts with identifying key positions, involves clear criteria for succession decisions, and does not end with a contract signature but includes a guided transition phase.

According to Deloitte (Human Capital Trends 2023), more than half of companies lack a structured succession process. This is critical for maintaining strategic continuity and preventing the loss of valuable know-how.

Rethinking Executive Search

Targeted external recruitment of leadership roles is becoming increasingly complex in this context: career paths are less conventional, cultural fit is more critical, and candidate expectations are more differentiated. Modern executive search must go beyond traditional recruitment:

• It requires industry expertise, high-quality communication, and a strong network.

• It must understand and align company and candidate cultures.

• It should combine active market outreach with strategic consulting.

We support companies not only in finding the right leaders but also in building internal talent pools and designing sustainable succession processes.

Conclusion: Acting Today Secures Tomorrow

The baby boomer retirement wave is not a distant forecast but an immediate reality. Companies that invest now in smart talent, knowledge, and succession management gain operational security, employer attractiveness, and strategic resilience.