Working Wonders

A funny thing happened to Renée Ward when she launched an online employment agency called Teens4hire.org. The Huntington Beach, California, entrepreneur soon discovered that the real demand was for older workers. "Retailers, restaurant chains, and business-service companies all asked me to do something similar for workers ages 50-plus," she recalls. Ward launched Seniors4hire.org last February. By July of 2005 she had a daily average of 80,000 active job seekers looking at 20,000 openings posted by more than 500 participating businesses, including Regal Entertainment Group, General Nutrition Centers, and RadioShack.

What's the big attraction? "People in their 50s and 60s have a great work ethic, and they want to spend time with customers," explains Kay Jackson, a spokesperson for RadioShack. "We want people who are passionate about customer service, and our older workers remember the good old days when salespeople prided themselves on how well they could help customers."

RadioShack and like-minded employers are benefiting from an unfolding trend that is changing the rules for life and work after 50. Specifically, a rapidly growing number of people over 50 are thinking of retirement not as a time to quit work entirely but as a chance to switch to work that better suits them and is more fulfilling. According to a recent survey, half of Americans ages 50 to 70 say they are interested in taking jobs that will help improve the quality of life in their communities. And while interest in meaningful work is strongest in the early 50s (65 percent), it's still significant (30 percent) among respondents 65 to 70. "Those who will keep working want more than an endless incarnation of midlife work," says Marc Freedman, president of the nonprofit group Civic Ventures, which sponsored the survey with funding from the MetLife Foundation. "They want to renegotiate their relationship with work. They're looking for more flexibility, and they want to be liberated from long workdays."

More and more employers are happy to oblige out of their own self-interest. Larry Huston, vice president for innovation and knowledge at Procter & Gamble, helped start an independent business that hires retirees for flexible work assignments at P&G and several other participating corporations. "One of our managers said the retiree he hired had the energy of a new guy and the wisdom of a veteran," says Huston. "The retiree arrived completely up to speed and ready to work, but he was also energized, full of new ideas. That is tremendously valuable to us."

Executives like Huston are on the leading edge. Most companies don't yet offer flexible scheduling, retraining at midcareer, or other perks that might attract or retain 50-plus workers, according to a 2005 survey by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) in Alexandria, Virginia. "The big issue for most business executives is what's going to happen in the next quarter," says SHRM president Susan Meisinger. "Long-term labor-force development issues are unlikely to be at the top of their minds."

In fact, too many executives still have outdated attitudes about what workers over 50 bring to their jobs. "Age discrimination is embedded in society, so it plays out in the workplace in all kinds of ways," says Helen Dennis, a lecturer at the University of Southern California's Andrus Gerontology Center who specializes in aging and employment issues. "Anyone over 50 who has looked for a job will tell you it's still a big problem."

Nevertheless, these outdated attitudes are changing as an increasing number of government agencies, not-for-profit organizations, and private companies are finding that welcoming 50-plus workers gives them powerful advantages. For example, when you consider that householders ages 55 to 64 spend more than the average U.S. household does on televisions, radios, and sound equipment, it makes perfect business sense for RadioShack to recruit 50-plus employees. "We want to reflect the demographics of the 7,000 neighborhoods we serve," says RadioShack's Jackson. "It is a lot easier to learn about new technology from someone who is both enthusiastic and about your age," she says. "If they can do it, you can do it."

Search for the underlying force that's driving change in the workplace and you'll find some familiar faces. Once again, members of the baby-boom generation are transforming society to satisfy their own needs.

Seventy-seven million strong, boomers are one quarter of the U.S. population packed into an 18-year birth cohort. This year baby boomers are between the ages of 41 and 59, and according to an AARP survey released last year ("Boomers Envision Retirement II"), some 80 percent of them plan to work after retiring. Looking forward, the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics has projected that the number of employed Americans ages 55 to 64 will increase by 51 percent between 2002 and 2012, while the number ages 65 to 74 will increase by 48 percent. In 2002 about one in seven employed Americans was 55 or older; in 2012 that share will be close to one in five.

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Many 50-plus retirees will stay in the workplace for the reasons cited in the MetLife/Civic Ventures survey, but for many others the motivation will be financial necessity. According to the Employee Benefits Research Institute, most American workers haven't even bothered to calculate the amount of money they will need to accumulate for retirement. "People don't seem to be saving more even though employer-sponsored pensions are becoming less available and less reliable. The result is that many people are approaching retirement without enough money to live on," says Martha Farnsworth Riche, former director of the U.S. Census Bureau and a business consultant in Trumansburg, New York. "It seems logical to assume that more of them will want to keep working."

More people of retirement age will be capable of working, too, as Americans live longer and healthier lives. In 1960 the average 65-year-old American had 14 years and five months of life remaining; in 2002 that person had 18 years and two months. The percentage of 65- to 74-year-old men who say they have a work disability declined from 31 percent in 1995 to 23 percent in 2004, according to the Census Bureau. Also, fewer jobs require a lot of physical strength. The proportion of workers ages 55 to 60 who say their jobs almost never require lots of physical effort increased from 32 percent in 1992 to 38 percent in 2002, according to the University of Michigan's biannual "Health and Retirement Study."

While valuing flexibility, they are motivated to perform well and be fully engaged in their work.

Americans may also be the world's workaholics. Only 14 percent of respondents in the U.S. say they expect to stop working completely when they retire, compared with 30 percent in the United Kingdom and 53 percent in Italy, according to a survey conducted in June 2005 by Harris Interactive for AARP's Global Aging program ("International Retirement Security Survey"). More than one third of Americans say they expect to do some kind of part-time work, compared with 6 percent of respondents in France and 10 percent in the Netherlands.

Of course, the strength of the economy will control the speed at which the job market shifts to accommodate older workers, because labor shortages are the biggest force that will push employers to change. These are already serious in some industries as aging workers retire without enough qualified younger workers to replace them. Eight states are now confronted by a staffing shortage for nurses that exceeds 20 percent. Ten years from now, 28 states could face shortages as severe, according to the U.S. Bureau of Health Professions. School districts in fast-growing states such as California, Florida, and Texas are facing critical shortages of teachers.

Advocates for 50-plus workers say that the key to changing corporate policies is changing the attitudes of top executives. Effecting such changes can sometimes be simply a matter of taking a closer look at what made the business a success in the first place.

"When we studied our most profitable retail branches in the early 1990s, we found that they were the ones with the longest-serving employees," says Vicki Dye of the First Horizon National Corporation, a Memphis, Tennessee, financial-services firm that has been named three times to AARP's list of the Best Employers for Workers Over 50, including this year. "So we asked our employees what it would take to make them stay with us longer. They said they wanted more control over their work and more flexibility in their hours. We retrained all our managers and adopted a culture that we call employees first. It means that everyone, regardless of background, gets an equal opportunity."

"There isn't a lot of paperwork and there aren't a lot of rules," says Lori Frazier, vice president for employee communications and development at First Horizon. "We work things out person to person. It's hard to appreciate it unless you've experienced it."

For Nadine West, 72, the cultural difference was striking. She moved to a job in the insurance division of a bank owned by First Horizon five years ago, when her previous Memphis employer was absorbed in a merger. "Earlier this year I had heart surgery, and my supervisor came to visit me in intensive care," she says. "You can write all the rules you want. That visit said it all for me."

The corporate world can learn a lot about attracting 50-plus workers by looking at the hiring practices of government agencies and not-for-profit organizations, which are much more likely to have long-standing programs for older workers in place. One of the more successful public-sector efforts is Senior Environmental Employment (SEE), which has been placing skilled 50-plus workers in government agencies since the late 1970s. The program had a dramatic early success when the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) hired SEE workers to advise public schools across the country on the best ways to remove asbestos materials. The SEE workers proved much faster and more efficient than traditional private contractors. Today the program enrolls about 1,700 workers and accounts for nearly 10 percent of the EPA's entire labor force. Most participants work at least 30 hours a week, and all positions include health insurance and paid vacations.

The federal government has also been in the forefront of adapting the workplace to the needs of older workers. Two thirds of government human resources managers say they provide flexible-scheduling options, according to the SHRM survey; 42 percent give workers the chance to transfer to jobs with reduced pay and responsibilities; and 45 percent have developed processes to capture institutional memory and organizational knowledge.

One reason government employers are ahead of the private sector when it comes to creating an age-friendly workplace is that Congress passed the first anti-age-discrimination law in 1967 and has strengthened it several times since then. Another reason is the great match between employees with specialized skills, who often retire early, and agencies that often need those skills on a less-than-full-time basis. "We're hopping to fill the openings the agencies send us," says Jack Everett of the National Older Workers Career Center (NOWCC) of Arlington, Virginia, one of six private contractors that manage the SEE program. "This concept is perfect for its time."

Another public-sector success story is Troops to Teachers, which has placed 8,000 retiring military personnel in public school jobs since 1994. Half of those placements have been made in the last three years. "These people are extremely valuable resources for public education," says John Gantz, director of the Pensacola, Florida-based program. "They have leadership, dedication, and organizational skills. They are outstanding role models."

Older workers are eager to share their knowledge and accumulated life experience.

Not-for-profits, in particular hospitals and health care organizations, also have recognized that it is in their best interests to court 50-plus workers. In fact, 42 percent of health care human-resources managers surveyed by SHRM say they offer flextime to employees, 38 percent allow transfers to less demanding jobs, and 50 percent assist employees with retirement-planning information. There is a bottom-line reason for these perks, however. Not-for-profits usually pay less than private corporations, so they have a harder time attracting skilled labor.

The not-for-profit sector's flexibility could appeal to sixtysomething boomers who need a small, steady income and want meaningful work with flexibility—but there's a catch. "The usual reflex of nonprofits is to think of retirees as volunteers," says Civic Ventures' Freedman. "Executive directors need to change that attitude. They will get much better, more motivated people if they offer some kind of compensation."

Cleveland's MetroHealth System recognized this when it set up a new program called Wisdom Works! that offers both volunteer work and paid part-time jobs to retired nurses. "The paid positions have attracted a lot more interest," says director Coletta Hazel, herself a retired MetroHealth nurse. "We started the program by asking nurses and managers what jobs nurses ages 50-plus could do well. What we heard was that experienced nurses tend to be more reliable and have fewer absences. They also tend to be more empathetic with patients and families, and their clinical experience allows them to spot problems less experienced nurses might miss."

Several Wisdom Works hires became admission or discharge nurses. "Admitting patients involves assessing and interviewing them, finding out the medications they take, their home environment, and whatever is happening that might affect their conditions," says Hazel. "We have people in their 70s now working in that area. And they say it is the best nursing job they have ever had because they get to use all the experience they have accumulated."

When there were plenty of workers for the available jobs, private industry was content to wave goodbye to retiring employees and replace them with a younger model. In recent years, however, a creeping labor shortage and the inexorable demands of the aging boomer generation have been altering the thinking in corporate suites across the country.

For Procter & Gamble, meeting a long-standing goal to increase sales 5 to 7 percent a year was motivation enough to reach out to skilled retirees. "To [meet our goals], we need to excel at innovation," says vice president Huston. "There are 8,000 research-and-development scientists on our staff, but there are about 200 times that many people outside P&G who have skills that are of interest to us. So we've been building a variety of ways to put our questions to skilled people all over the world."

One of the things P&G did was to send out a request for proposals that resulted in the formation in October 2003 of a company called YourEncore, a talent broker for retired research scientists that now serves several corporate clients, including P&G, Eli Lilly, and Boeing. The companies describe their research needs, and YourEncore suggests names from a roster it maintains at no obligation to the retiree. Once a deal is reached, YourEncore hires the retiree and contracts with the company to provide the retiree's services. "We take the hassle out of it for both sides," says executive vice president Mike Kostrzewa. "One fellow we hired said to me, 'I like to work, but I hate to look for work, and that's why I like you.' "

But while such opportunities for older workers are on the rise, some fiscal negatives continue to give employers pause. One hard-to-ignore negative is that 50-plus workers cost more in benefits than younger workers do. This is true as far as it goes, but while average medical-claims costs do tend to be higher for 50-plus workers, dependent health care coverage, which peaks in the early 40s, tends to be lower for them, according to data gathered by Medstat, a research firm in Ann Arbor, Michigan. And although longer-service employees may cost companies more by being eligible for more paid vacation days and being fully vested in pension plans, they save money in ways employers often overlook. For example, the one-time cost of replacing an experienced, long-term employee can be significant—what with the cost of advertising, recruitment, relocation, orientation—and can be much higher for jobs requiring specialized skills. There is also a loss of productivity over the length of time it takes for the new hire to get the hang of the job.

Meanwhile, some advantages of employing older workers can't be calculated in numbers. "They have more life experience," says SHRM's Meisinger. "They know when to panic and when to be more relaxed when a problem arises because they're more likely to have seen it before. They are also dependable. Showing up for work on time is a simple thing, but it's important."

There's also less chance of office politics and gamesmanship getting in the way of good work. "They don't want power," says Everett. "The motivation of an older worker is completely different. They want to be involved and connected. Work becomes an expression of their caring for other people."

After years on the job, many older workers find striving for the top dollar and the corner office less and less important. Instead, they crave work that adds meaning to their lives: work that allows them to share their accumulated wisdom and stay engaged while paying some bills.

For former marketing executive John Andes, 65, it was all of the above. Andes is paying a child's way through college, so he needs a full-time income, but "the pressure of a corporate job was killing me," he says. Last fall he started working as a part-time employee at the Home Depot in Natick, Massachusetts; earlier this year he was promoted to manager of the paint department. Nowadays, he couldn't be happier. "There's almost no stress here. The management is supportive and the customers are friendly," he says. "My supervisor encourages me to make friends with my customers and joke around with them so they'll come back and ask for me. It's almost perfect."

Andes is just one of hundreds of 50-plus workers who have found jobs at Home Depot through AARP's Featured Employers program, which puts workers who are looking for full- or part-time work, or who are looking to change careers, in touch with 13 major (prescreened) employers specifically interested in hiring mature workers.

For Andes and other hires, this means jobs that meet their unique needs. For Home Depot, which partnered with AARP in 2004, recruiting 50-plus workers is a winning proposition. "We found that 50-plus people pass our hiring tests at a considerably higher rate than the general population," says Dennis Donovan, executive vice president for human resources. "They also have higher attendance and retention rates."

Of course, desirable 50-plus workers are looking for attractive benefits as well as a welcoming workplace. So, Home Depot offers a generous health, vision, and dental-care insurance plan to both full- and part-time workers. The motivation behind the offer couldn't be clearer. "We know we're in a war for talented people," says Donovan.

What's happening at Home Depot, RadioShack, Procter & Gamble, and other companies portends a sea change in the American workplace. "Employers are beginning to realize that some of the myths they've heard about 50-plus workers are just unfounded," says Deborah Russell, director of economic security at AARP.

Russell predicts an increasingly diverse labor force, with older workers becoming an essential asset to any forward-thinking company. "It's like the 1970s, when women were streaming into the workplace," she says. "Employers who paid attention and changed their policies to be friendly to women had a powerful edge. The same thing is going to happen as boomers age. There are great opportunities for employers who can make their policies diverse enough to accommodate everyone."

Brad Edmondson is vice president of ePodunk.com and former editor of American Demographics magazine.

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