In our ebook 5 Things Keeping HR Up At Night, we identified succession planning as one of HR practitioners’ major concerns moving into 2014.

Baby Boomers, many of whom were forced to work later in life due to the recent financial crisis, are finally starting to age out of the workforce, taking with them a wealth of essential knowledge and skills.

In his post on the Harvard Business Review, however, author David DeLong points out that companies need to identify which people in their organizations are nearing retirement and what skills they will take with them.

He also makes an interesting point:

“Not all skills gaps are due to looming retirements. For example, shortages of mobile app developers, networking engineers, and sustainability managers are due to the rapid growth of new industries. These jobs didn’t exist a decade ago, and there is no older generation to draw on. This poses different challenges, such as identifying patterns of your most successful hires, like the schools they come from, where they live, and other characteristics that predict high performance and retention.”

This challenge isn’t limited to tech companies – how do you effectively build a workforce when you don’t have any incumbent data on which to base your decisions? Check out this 30-second video for the answer.