DON KOHLBAUER / Union-Tribune
At 82, Walter Spain still reports to work several times a week at Home Depot in Carmel Mountain Ranch.
Spain thinks employers tend to take a dim view of older workers, overlooking their value.
Posted on 04/23/2006 11:43:48 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
Just as they have for 60 years, baby boomers are throwing their weight around again.
This time, though, it's not a matter of how to educate, house and employ the mass of 78 million Americans in that generation, but rather how to replace their skills and knowledge in the workplace as they begin to retire.
The oldest of the baby boomers turn 60 this year, on the verge of traditional retirement age.
The percentage of workers older than 65 will increase from 14.4 percent of the work force in 2004 to 19.7 percent by 2014, meaning the fastest-growing part of the U.S. work force will be retirement age, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Yet few companies welcome older workers.
It's more common to find businesses offering early retirement to shuttle older workers out the door, relieving themselves of expensive salary and benefit packages. And little is being done to offer workplace adjustments that would entice employees to work longer.
“The baby boomers are going to be leaving the workplace soon, and they are going to take all their knowledge with them,” said Sandra Timmerman, a gerontologist who heads MetLife's Mature Market Institute. “If you ignore that, you're going to make the problem worse than it has to be.”
Despite that, the U.S. workplace is anything but hospitable to most older workers.
“America is enamored with youth, and a lot of businesses don't look favorably on older workers,” said Miriam Rothman, a professor of management at the University of San Diego. “Most employers want to hire young people, fresh people. They don't want to deal with older people. But they are going to find very soon that they need these older workers.”
A Federal Reserve study to be released in July warns that retirements by baby boomers may have a profound impact on the nation's economic growth, perhaps slowing it dramatically because there aren't enough workers to fill key jobs.
The Fed study projects that annual economic growth over the next decade will fall to less than 3 percent annually, down from 3.3 percent annual gains through the 1990s.
A survey by the Society for Human Resources Management shows that two-thirds of companies think they will lose talent when baby boomers retire, although there is little evidence that companies are doing much to try to keep them working.
“It's a little like the chicken and the egg,” said MetLife's Timmerman. “Companies seem to acknowledge the problem, but everyone is standing around waiting for someone else to find a solution. It's a little frustrating because that means we may have a crisis before most companies do anything about it.”
The issue has not gone unnoticed in some quarters.
Last fall, IBM organized a discussion of community leaders, business people and academics at the University of San Diego to discuss how the aging work force will affect the workplace in the years ahead.
It was one of several that IBM has held around the county to call attention to the impending loss of institutional knowledge, said Eric Lesser, leader of IBM's West Coast human capital management group.
“We know that there are a lot of older workers who will be leaving in the next few years, but we wanted to make sure that we didn't lose their expertise and knowledge,” Lesser said. “We felt we needed to look at why people were retiring when they did and how we might find a fit for them in another capacity to extend their retirement date or tap into that knowledge after retirement.”
IBM, which maintains a stable of retirees who mentor and pass on knowledge to younger workers, also has a consulting service to help companies assess how they will be affected by baby boomer retirements. “This will have severe consequences for some companies unless they prepare for it,” Lesser said.
Last fall, IBM also introduced a program to help shore up the shortage of science and math teachers by providing up to $15,000 in tuition and stipends to some of its most experienced workers who want to transition into teaching.
IBM employees who've worked for the company for at least 10 years are eligible to study for the new career while still on IBM's payroll. They then leave the company to become math or science teachers.
“We have a lot of people who have always wanted to teach, and this is an opportunity to do that,” said IBM's Robin Wilner.
One unknown is how many baby boomers will postpone retirement beyond the traditional age of 65.
Older people are driven today to extend their working lives by a variety of factors: economic uncertainties, poor retirement planning, collapsing pension plans and longer life spans.
MetLife, for example, reports that 54 percent of baby boomers are concerned they will have to work either part time or full time after age 65 to have a comfortable retirement.
“I think there are a lot of workers who are getting older who want to continue working, but not necessarily in the same careers,” USD's Rothman said. “These baby boomers want to stay involved, and work is one of the ways they will do that.”
But as Timmerman points out, employers will be motivated to find ways to keep employees longer only when they witness firsthand the shrinking pool of experienced talent.
San Diego-based Sharp HealthCare, for instance, got its indoctrination under fire.
A nationwide shortage of nurses has caused the health care company to look at how it could accommodate nurses rather than seeing them bolt the company or the profession, said senior recruiter Joyce Stewart.
“The bulk of the health care work force is in nursing, and everyone knows there is a shortage of nurses,” Stewart said, noting that the average age of a Sharp nurse is now 45. “So we began to look at ways we could make the job more attractive and keep people from leaving.”
Sharp instituted an in-house registry for nurses, clerical help, information technology workers and others in its 13,0000-employee work force. Many Sharp employees can shape their own work schedules in medical clinics, labs and hospitals around the county.
Instead of forcing workers into highly structured jobs, the registry allows them to work fewer than 40 hours a week if they want, and to bid on work schedules they find most compatible with their lifestyles and personal needs.
“If they only want to work four shifts a month, we'll do that,” Stewart said.
Sharp also found that one of the primary workplace complaints of older nurses is the physical nature of the work. Stewart said Sharp has investigated ways to reduce those demands to prevent nurses from leaving.
“These are valuable employees to us, and anything we can do shape the job around their needs will help keep them from leaving,” she said. “We know that we can't solve everyone's concerns, but we are looking at ways we can change to make our jobs more attractive and retain these individuals.”
Another company that recognized the shortfall of experienced workers in the labor pool is Home Depot, which formed a partnership with AARP to hire workers 50 and older for some of the 35,000 annual openings at the home-improvement chain.
Home Depot allows workers wide latitude in setting work hours and has trained managers on dealing with older employees.
One of those workers is Walter Spain, a Sabre Springs resident who first retired as a contract administrator from Rockwell International in 1991 at the age of 67. After a brief retirement, Spain worked for a decade at a Poway hardware store until it closed last year.
Now 82, Spain is working in the hardware department at the Home Depot store in Carmel Mountain Ranch. He works 24 to 32 hours a week, or as many hours as he wants.
“Companies are scared to death to hire old people,” he said. “It's like they expect you to fall over dead on the spot. The truth is that a lot of us want to work and enjoy it. I'm thankful I found somewhere that will welcome me.”
But most companies don't seem to feel the need to change how they handle aging workers – at least not yet.
Cubic Corp., a San Diego defense contractor and maker of automatic fare collection systems for mass transit, has no formal mentoring program, nor does it worry about a shrinking labor pool even though the average age of its work force is about 48, said Bernie Kulchin, Cubic's vice president of human resources.
“We believe that there is no substitute for experience,” he said. “We have always coached, counseled and guided younger workers, but we've never had a formal program.”
Like other companies – particularly technology and firms with specialized personnel – Cubic often brings back retired workers to work on short-term projects because of their expertise.
MetLife's Timmerman said a major obstacle to keeping older workers on the job is the reluctance of companies to invest in training them for new tasks.
“As a person gets older, most employers don't want to train them,” she said. “Of course they don't say that, but there is a powerful message that is sent to older workers that they aren't worth the investment.
“I think that's a mistake,” Timmerman said. “We need to realize that training will keep these people in the work force doing work we need done.”
USD management professor Rothman said companies and older workers need to change their attitudes about older workers.
“Competence has nothing to do with age,” she said. “But we seem to have built this barrier that once you cross it, your work life is done. That's wrong. But I really think it is going to take a crisis, such as a labor shortage, for it to sink in that there are workers there who can do the job.”
At 82, Walter Spain still reports to work several times a week at Home Depot in Carmel Mountain Ranch.
Spain thinks employers tend to take a dim view of older workers, overlooking their value.
"Baby boomer exodus - As millions retire, their skills and knowledge will be gone, too ,"
...and one can only their politics, their control of education, and their control of the MSM follows them to the grave.
India.
Engineers and doctors are what I am noticing influxing now.
Not enough jobs! No, wait, too many jobs and not enough people to fill them! The earth is getting colder. No, wait, it's getting hotter! We are running out of food. No, wait, we have too much food and now everybody's getting too fat! We are using too much fuel and we are polluting our environment! No, wait, we don't have enough oil and now the prices are going up! Drinking too much coffee is bad for you. No wait, drinking coffee is good for you! But wait, now it's bad for you again...
Sounds like Sandra Timmerman is a baby boomer.
It's not nice to curse an entire generation, but this one has had more than its share of dropouts, drug addicts, spaced-out idiots, aquarians, clintonoids, and perpetual adolescents. That's not directed toward the many folks of that generation who have lived good lives and carried their share of the load.
Woodstock, fairwell!
Government will merely seize the retirees in an eminent domain brainstorm and force them back to work!
Now c'mon, admit it. You're gonna miss us when we're gone.
lol.. I'm on my second large cup of coffee , btw,, and I'm a tail end baby boomer to boot. ;-)
Gee, I thought the new crop of gruaduates was brilliant!
What happened?
Why the concern of NO BRAINS after boomers retire?
;)
Yeah, the new ones are dumber than you know what!!!
I see this being a problem only if the Federal Reserve or some other government agency tries to interfere with the market. Seeing how they are doing studies, I'm pretty sure they will.
Here, here.
APf
Since it all runs downhill, whatever happens to the "boomers", happens to us by default. We'll be lumped in with them from here on out.
An article that starts this stupidly can't possibly have anything of worth to it.
boomer ping
Good, why doesn't this generation of communist pass away already. Most selfish, hateful, anti American generation of all time.
Of course there are some conservative heroes, but by in large...
On the other hand, rural counties are finding, to their surprise, that some of these retired experts are settling in their midst - where there is has historically been a lack of expertise and available resources. If we could only find them and get them interested in helping their communities, we could see a rural revival.
Many, however, seem to feel that they have raised their families and worked hard and that the community should serve them.
Ping list for the discussion of the politics and social (and sometimes nostalgic) aspects that directly effects Generation Reagan / Generation-X (Those born from 1965-1981) including all the spending previous generations (i.e. The Baby Boomers) are doing that Gen-X and Y will end up paying for.
Freep mail me to be added or dropped. See my home page for details and previous articles.
"Just as they have for 60 years, baby boomers are throwing their weight around again....The oldest of the baby boomers turn 60 this year, on the verge of traditional retirement age."
"An article that starts this stupidly can't possibly have anything of worth to it."
Except many people do think the boomers have actually run things since the first one was born.
Instead of looking at modern American history and taking the "Greatest Generation" to task for destroying the country. (I believe the 1965 immigration law was the stake in our heart)
Many impressionable people believe the children and teenagers of the 60s were making all those Supreme Court judgments, and passing all that legislation, and leading the ACLU, and the Feminist movement, the NEA and on and on.
It's going to be the largest transfer of wealth the nation has ever seen as many boomers take their retirement $$ out of the hands of their employers managers and handle it themselves.
Wall Street differs on how this will affect the market with most seeming to come down on the side the market will be affected relatively little since the retirements will be happening over a period of approx. 10+ years.
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