|
|
Aging Work Force Suggests
Crisis Waiting in the Wings
By Will Higgins, The Indianapolis Star
April 14, 2005
Ellery Fields, 57, is employed at Home Depot in Greenwood.
Fields, who retired from Lucent Technologies, is among a growing number of retirees
who continue to work part time.
Mpozi Mshale Tolbert / The Star
Bruce Peterson, a chemical engineer and manager at Procter & Gamble, was energized by his work. But he had tired of the 10- to 11-hour days. He had invested wisely, so he could afford to retire. At age 52.
So he did. Sort of. He went to work for an innovative Indianapolis-based company called Your Encore, which farms out highly skilled workers on a temporary basis to other companies.
Since December, Peterson has worked on a project at Eli Lilly and Co. He works three days a week.
Such phased-in retirements could help save businesses from a coming worker shortage.
The demographics are alarming: From 2008 to 2030, about 76 million baby boomers will retire, according to the Government Accountability Office, but only 48 million new workers will be available to take their positions.
The graying of the "pig in the python" is central to the center-stage Social Security debate. Its implications for the future work force get less attention. "The folks I talk to, small business, aren't really dealing much with it," says David Holt, vice president of work force development policy at the Indiana Chamber of Commerce. "They have plans one year out, three years out, maybe five years out."
The oldest boomers will turn 65 six years from now.
Today's seniors, born just in front of the baby boom, are working later. A third of men and 23 percent of women ages 65 to 69 have jobs. Alan Greenspan, the Federal Reserve chairman, is going strong at 78. The AARP recently posted on its Web site a list of 13 companies it calls "featured employers." They are companies -- including Home Depot and Borders Group, the bookstore operator -- AARP has determined "are looking for job applicants like you."
But more needs to be done to accommodate older workers, says Ellen Miller, associate director of the University of Indianapolis' Center for Aging and Community. "We as a society have a prevalence of ageism -- the rightness of youth," Miller says. "You don't have to look far to realize American society is really quite ageist. That extends to the workplace."
The center on aging will host a one-day seminar Friday that aims to call attention to the coming retirements and to stimulate planning for the coming change-over. Among the topics: succession planning, mentoring, generational issues. "How does a 30-year-old manager manage a 55-year-old employee?" says Carol Blenzinger, the center's senior fellow for workplace issues.
"Many companies are not yet feeling the pain of this issue," says Miller. "It's not affecting them this quarter. But they may be feeling it in three years or five years or seven years. We're advocating: 'Why wait for this to be a crisis?' "
Carol D'Amico, chancellor at Ivy Tech State College, says many of the companies she deals with -- most with 250 to 500 workers -- haven't done something so simple as calculate the average age of their work forces. "And when they go to calculate it," she says, "they're astounded at the percentage of their work force that will soon be eligible to retire."
Some companies are taking steps to ease the coming transition. Vectren Corp., the Evansville-based utility company, last year formed a task force of human resources and operations staffers. The group found where the company was most vulnerable to imminent retirements -- its hourly workers, such as its electricians. The company beefed up its relationships with colleges and trade schools throughout the state. "As the economy picks up and more jobs are created," says Vectren human resources vice president Dick Lynch, "I think people will pay a lot more attention (to the coming work force shortage). At times when no one is hiring, it's not as intense of an issue."
It's the loss of high-end workers, such as scientists and engineers, that worries David DeLong, a research fellow at MIT's AgeLab and author of the book "Lost Knowledge: Confronting the Threat of an Aging Workforce" (and a speaker at Friday's conference).
Says DeLong: "All the traditional sectors that have been around for decades -- manufacturing, aerospace, the oil and gas industry -- will face a tremendous loss of brainpower in the next five to 10 years."
Indianapolis-based Your Encore, founded 18 months ago following a collaboration between Lilly and Procter & Gamble, in effect bundles recently retired, highly educated consultants and offers them up for short-term projects. A company's $50,000 fee to Your Encore gives it access to Your Encore's stable of 530 people.
The workers, who pay nothing to be in the network and are free to turn down projects, are paid an hourly wage equal to what they last made as full-time employees plus a cost-of-living adjustment.
So far, in addition to Lilly and P&G, Boeing and National Starch and Chemical have signed up.
For the worker, the arrangement is lovely, Peterson reports. After 30 years of working late, he now has time to take a tae kwon do class with his daughters. He installed a new sink for his wife. His lawn has never looked better. "I had a satisfying career at P&G," Peterson says, "but I like my life better now."
"It's hard to go from 80 mph to 0," says Your Encore Vice President Mike Kostrzewa. "They want to continue to stay engaged. They want to retire but on their own terms."
|
|
