Long Island Development Corporation was founded in 1980. Starting with one part time volunteer (yours truly), it has evolved into a 22 person company, serving Long Island's small businesses with low cost loans and free assistance to obtain government contracts. Over the years, LIDC has been fortunate to assemble a highly dedicated, efficient, loyal team of employees-some being retired or excessed bankers; others coming right from careers raising children; and still others growing from college intern to full time employee. LIDC's fortune has also extended to having a very stable workforce with little turnover. Unfortunately, now that we are reaching our 25th year, we have finally come to the time when we are facing employee turnover due to retirement.
My first reaction was to create a policy prohibiting retirement and permitting employees to leave the company only upon their demise. After being advised by Counsel (myself) that such a policy might violate various labor laws, I rethunk it. Lets face it - for most businesses, employee turnover is a fact of life, faced every day. For big businesses, it's merely inconvenient. For small businesses it can be disastrous. For LIDC, it's just plain scary (if you're a small business you know what I mean).
I'm pleased to tell you that, after the initial shock, I've come to accept these changes as a normal part of maturing business and doing business. So - what to do, what to do??? I've decided to look on this not as a difficult challenge- but as an exciting opportunity. In the case of our senior lenders retiring over the next few years, this gives us the ability to bring in fresh blood from the lending community - people with new ideas, a variety of experiences and great hunger to serve our small business community.
In the case of our support and technical assistance staff, it gives us a chance to look at how we do business and make appropriate changes without worrying about entrenched habits or feelings. For LIDC, it involves a whole new software system which helps move us to (eventually) a fully e-commerce, paperless office - meaning more efficient operations, speedier service to our clients, and the ability to serve more small businesses. The new faces which will come on board over the next few years will be able to easily embrace this new technology.
Now, don't think I'm just discarding our valued retirees - we have an open door policy and hope many of them will continue with us in a part time basis-after all, you don't get stupid just because you retire! So, in the case of this one Long Island small business, we are happily surviving employee turnover, and thriving in the knowledge that business, like life, moves on and, given the right perspective, improves with age.