For most of us, understanding how to develop and promotesuperior benefits packages for today's age-diverse work force is abit like talking on the phone, texting on our Blackberries, andchecking e-mail on our laptops - all at the same time. In otherwords, it's complicated, requires concentration, and demands thatwe keep track of our various and simultaneous audiences, lest wesend a text to our client that should have gone by e-mail to ourcolleague. The fact is, employers today, along with their HRmanagers, must navigate a complicated work place that is, for thefirst time in American history, comprised of four generations ofworkers. To help them meet the multigenerational challenge, we mustbecome experts at multi-tasking, developing a deep understanding ofthe needs and desires of both younger and older employees, andassembling flexible benefits packages that target multiple goals atonce.

By now, the story of our increasingly age-diverse work force hasbecome clear. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics,the older labor force is projected to grow more than five timesfaster than the overall labor force by 2016. By 2014, nearly athird of the work force will be age 50 or older. In fact, by 2011,baby boomers - or those born between 1946 and 1964 - will make upalmost 40 percent of the country's work force. At the same time,almost seven million members of the "Traditionalists" or World WarII generation - born before 1945 - will still be at work.Generation X-ers, born between 1965 and 1980, will comprise 32percent of the work force by 2014, and members of Generation Y (orthe Millennial Generation), born between 1980 and 2000, will makeup approximately 25 percent.

Facing financial pressures, economic uncertainty, and a desireto remain active and social, people are simply working longer, afact that is radically altering the work place dynamic on a varietyof levels. At the same time, as we all know, employers areconfronting their own financial pressures and economic uncertainty,and as they work to manage and retain employees with very differentgoals, experiences and even values, they are searching for benefitspackages that are viewed as rewarding and helpful by everyone.