Founder and president, Boomer Den, LLC, an agency that empowers adult workers through internships and job-placement services

"The idea first caught on a couple years ago, with the popularity of the movie 'The Intern.' In that film, A-list actor Robert De Niro plays a retired professional who accepts an internship with a trendy online fashion company to sharpen his skills and stay engaged. By the end of the film — as you might have guessed — De Niro earns his stripes as a valued team player who is looked to for his temperance and wisdom when chaos erupts.

The hit film brought to light the concept of reverse mentoring — millennials providing tutelage and guidance to their older counterparts in the workplace. It isn't a new concept, but it's rising to the surface as retired or downsized professionals seek novel ways to reenter the workforce. It plays off the 'traditional' apprenticeship model, where a young trainee learns a craft or trade under the watchful eye of an older, more experienced worker.

Jack Welsh, former CEO of General Electric, is widely credited with introducing the concept to the U.S. in 1999, when he charged his top officials with finding junior mentors to teach them the latest technologies. He was on to something, those 17 years ago.

According to U.S. Census Bureau projections, 'the proportion of Connecticut's population that is 60 and older is growing more rapidly than other sectors of the population.' The Bureau estimates that nearly 26 percent of Connecticut's population will be 60 and older by the year 2030.

So for Connecticut's aging workers, reverse mentoring makes good sense. Many have been phased out of jobs before they felt ready to go. Others voluntarily retired, but still have much to offer. But they face a changing work environment.

For many, today's millennials hold the key to the knowledge and skills needed to succeed in fields like social media marketing and applications development.

The younger set, in turn, gains insight into strategy, negotiation skills and 'macro' views of the big picture. They become groomed to step into leadership roles when their time comes.

Who wins from this emerging trend? Both groups do. Intellectual property continues to be the single biggest asset of corporations across the U.S. In Connecticut alone, service giants such as United Technologies Corp., The Hartford, and Stamford-based Deloitte rely on the best and the brightest minds to innovate, create, and outpace the competition — minds that range anywhere from 25 to 75 years old.

Lisa Bonner is director of Change Management & Communications at Cigna in Hartford. In a recent TEDx talk, she spoke of the value of the younger set sharing social media and mobile technology knowledge with Cigna's 'senior leaders.' Bonner described 'putting a 25 year old in the chairman's office' as a 'leap of faith … but I knew we were going on to glory. It was difficult to take that step, but we did it. Once they opened up with each other, that's when the magic started to happen.'

Other benefits to reverse mentoring include improved morale and retention across the generations. And there's so much more to be done. Initiatives such as the Platform to Employment in Bridgeport provide to qualifying employers if they bring on unemployed — often senior — people for eight-week training internships. The hope is that those employers will hire these men and women full-time when the internships end.

Independent forecasters estimate that half our U.S. workforce will be made up by workers born in the mid-1980s or later. It's time in Connecticut to bridge generational gaps. It's time we take a step back, and then a solid leap forward, toward pooling our talents for mutual gain."