No not adolescents, middlescents. The people who,

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.

Like adolescents, they’re experiencing a time of change. They want to feel involved in their work but most (in fact, 33% of the 7,700 workers surveyed by Robert Morison, Tamara Erickson and Ken Dychtwald) are not. Satisfaction is hard to find; will they find it in your company?

According to the authors of Workforce Crisis ,

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…Millions of mid-career men and women would like nothing better than to convert their restlessness into fresh energy.

The Middlescent idea is from a Harvard Business Review titled Managing Middlescence by Robert Morison, Tamara Erickson and Ken Dychtwald. The article’s available here to purchase.

The authors also wrote Workforce Crisis.