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The past few decades has seen the emergence of a debate as to the impact of the ageing population and the retirement of the baby boomer generation. While it is commonly acknowledged that the greying of the Australian population will have major economic and political consequences, the real implications of an ageing labour force on future workforce trends appear largely ignored. Indeed, the Productivity Commission (2004) suggests that the lack of human resource systems will find organisations unprepared for the rapid decline in workforce participation. This paper utilises a sophisticated human resource management (HRM) model, Barney and Wright's (1998) VRIO [value, rarity, imitability, organisation] framework, to focus specifically on a crucial issue underlying the departure of the baby boomer workforce - the loss of their knowledge. Our results reveal significant differences between younger respondents (aged less than 45 years) and older respondents (aged over 45 years) in their views of ageing, preparation for retirement, knowledge management and attitudes towards HRM ageing initiatives. These findings suggest that organisations will have to become much more proactive and to do so quickly if they do wish to retain and possibly regain their baby boomer workers. Asking these questions in 2009, just as the flood of baby boomer retirements is about to hit suggests that not only are we never going to get our boomerang back, but that most organisations are totally unaware of what it is they have actually thrown away.

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