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Maybe because it鈥檚 my personal cause听肠茅濒猫产谤别听鈥� not to mention my full-time job, as executive VP at Encore.org, a national nonprofit that aims to channel the skills of people in and beyond midlife for the greater good 鈥� but I鈥檓 always asking people what they鈥檒l do next, if they plan to retire. Even when their plans include some time off, many people want to stay engaged with the wider world and make a constructive difference 鈥� and also recognize the need for continued income, even if it鈥檚 not their current full-time salary.

But too often, the conversation hits a dead end right there. As much as we like the idea of a 鈥榮econd act,鈥� few of us have given much thought to what our own second act might actually be. Retirement can look more like falling off a cliff than stepping onto a launch pad.

It鈥檚 unfortunate that companies large and small don鈥檛 offer much help to their employees in planning life beyond retirement. Often, assistance is bare-bones: a brief financial seminar or potential tuition reimbursement. But few corporations offer a structured program to help retirement-eligible employees negotiate the transition.

That鈥檚 the conclusion of听听by The Conference Board and Encore.org, which surveyed 91 employers to find out how they helped employees with these transitions. The answer: Not much.

Only 25% of employers do anything at all. Of those, only one in five 鈥� or 5% 鈥� have anything resembling a structured transition program.

We asked why companies don鈥檛 do more to help their employees move into their next chapter. The overwhelming reason: The transition to post-company life simply wasn鈥檛 a strategic priority.

Well, maybe not yet. But, as the report indicates, it should be 鈥� especially for companies that employ older workers. With Baby Boomers moving into what鈥檚 been considered the traditional retirement years, companies will soon confront very real challenges in managing their talent 鈥� both the employees they seek to retain and those who are ready to move on.

One of the most prominent benefits to companies like Intel, HP, IBM and a company called YourEncore (created for a consortium that includes P&G, Boeing and Eli Lilly), which have transition-planning programs, is a better toolset to develop and manage talent. These tools yield employees who are more engaged as they approach retirement, with a clearer sense of what can follow. In their second acts, they serve as ambassadors for their companies in the community, and they inspire loyalty among employees whose future second acts might be decades away.

Encore.org presented this research at our Encore2014 conference. The conversation included human-resources leaders from the corporate and nonprofit sectors, who agreed that transition-support programs were valuable resources. Last month, I joined Julie Wirt, Intel鈥檚 global retirement design manager, in a Conference Board听, where you can learn how Intel views the program and what it took to set it up.

One of the Encore 2014 panelists, Lisa Taylor, founder of听, shared a useful analogy. Growing up in a town laced with railroad crossings, Lisa learned that when a car is stalled on the tracks and a train is approaching, you should, perhaps counter-intuitively, run towards the train. That way, you鈥檙e less likely to be hit by flying debris.

With the 鈥渙ncoming train鈥� of changing workplace demographics barreling down the track, companies that run towards the train, anticipating the needs of employees who are looking for their next chapter, will avert the 鈥渇lying debris鈥� 鈥� and come out ahead, by retaining valuable talent for whom incentives make a powerful difference.

As Amber Wiseley, Intel鈥檚 Retirement Design Strategist for the Americas, noted at the conference, companies need any tool they can get their hands on to manage talent and make sure their workforce remains as motivated and productive as possible in a time when every dollar spent comes under scrutiny.