Gray Is Good

Employers Make Efforts to Retain Older Employees

By Sue Shellenbarger
From The Wall Street Journal Online

Traditionally, many employers have viewed older workers as inflexible, less productive than their younger colleagues, and more expensive because of higher salaries and health-care costs. When hard times force layoffs, older workers are often the first to get the ax. But now, many employers are at least giving lip service to retaining older workers. A few are taking concrete steps to actually do so, seeking older workers and retirees with needed skills, rooting out age bias, and setting up complex flexible work arrangements tailored to their needs.

For employers, the writing on the wall is hard to miss:

• Workers 55 and over are growing four times faster than the work force as a whole.

• By 2012, this age group will account for more than 19% of the labor force, up from current 16%.

• Bureau of Labor Statistics data show that in the same period, people in the prime working years, ages 25 to 44 will shrink to 43% of the work force from the current 46%.

Companies are recognizing that older workers are repositories of hard-to-replace knowledge, critical to their businesses. As workers retire, companies worry about losing relationships with suppliers and distributors, as well as the ability to maintain aging equipment, such as plants, machinery or other gear built to past standards.

As the work force ages, so do the customers, who often prefer to deal with older workers. Older employees serve as a powerful draw to baby-boomer shoppers by mirroring their knowledge and perspective. Older clients prefer advisers with experience.

The new attitudes come as age-discrimination complaints are falling. Although some serious cases do remain, preliminary Equal Employment Opportunity Commission data show age-discrimination complaints to the commission decreased 13% in the past two years, reflecting at least in part, a tightening of the labor market.

At Stanley Consultants, an 1,100-employee firm where more than one-fourth of employees are over 50, older workers are encouraged to continue part-time. Some run brown-bag training lunches for co-workers. The company keeps in touch with its pool of retirees; seven were recruited recently to help out with an Iowa project.

Some companies are applying new tools to stamp out age discrimination. At Baptist Health South Florida, a six-hospital concern with 11,000 employees, a three-member "long-service review committee" oversees any layoff or restructuring that affects a worker with more than 15 years' tenure, says Brian Keeley, president and CEO. In one case, a 60-year-old manager was at risk of losing his job when his unit was restructured. Committee members stepped in and delayed outside recruiting for any vacancies until the manager found a new position.

Deere & Co., Moline, Ill., where 35% of 46,000 employees are over 50, has developed its own mandatory manager-training program in-house, specifically to combat age discrimination, says Rick McAnally, Deere's director, global diversity and talent management. Some 1,200 managers at the agricultural-equipment maker took the course last year.

Some companies are offering extreme flexibility prized by older workers. Three months-five years' unpaid time off, without losing seniority. Such benefits, if offered, are available to all workers, but older workers tend to use them more often.

Some companies cater to "snowbirds", older workers who migrate between North and South with the season. By allowing them to transfer from store to store without re-applying, the company can provide full benefits to part-timers, another way to ease into retirement.

Other companies are making phased retirement more-broadly available; this allows workers to slowly shift out of the work force, cutting their hours for a while before retiring.

Some companies offer programs enabling employees to retire, begin drawing on pensions, and return to work through a temporary-help service. Workers over 59½ years of age can tap their retirement accounts while still working at their employer. This would be an exceptionally valuable program for schools to incorporate for their substitute teacher needs.

A few employers are creating a culture where workers feel safe volunteering information about retirement plans in advance. This is a step that makes it far easier to transfer and retain older workers' knowledge.

Employers can hire younger employees, but it is the seasoned mature-worker who has the wealth of industry knowledge, and personal attributes acquired on and off the job that make seniors valuable company assets.