The State of the Experienced Worker: Labor Day 2015

The short answer is despite your personal situation, overall the environment for workers 50+ is improving. I base my optimistic observation on 5 megatrends that have occurred since 2011, the first year when 10,000 Baby Boomers would turn 65 everyday for the next twenty years and the year this blog was launched:

There is a conversation about aging in the workforce that didn’t exist previously. Millennials, GenXers and others didn’t want to have a conversation about working Baby Boomers, basically they just wanted us to retire and go away quietly. In June 2015 there was a special Senate Hearing, “Work in Retirement: Career Reinvention and the New Retirement Workscape” chaired by a bi-partisan coalition studying issues of working past age 65. In April 2015 AARP commissioned a study conducted by AonHewitt , “A Business Case for Workers Age 50+: A Look at the Value of Experience 2015.” In March 2015, Money magazine published, “The Suddenly Hot Job Market for Workers Over 50.” CNBC, radio talk shows and other media have shined a light on the opportunities and challenges of our multi-generational workforce.

Baby Boomers are becoming career development do-it-yourselfers. Working at something we love past traditional retirement age and not tapping into social security benefits early at age 62, requires early planning. Well-meaning blog readers counseled me on moving the blog target demographic to 50+ attracting advertisers and readers in the senior market. Your 40s are the perfect decade to start planning the second stage of your career--so, I'm committed to Work, Jobs &Careers@ 40+. We have all realized the need to become DIY on training, networking and creating alternatives to what you do today if you don’t love your job. It is a personal accountability, like managing our health. No one else can do this for you and more Boomers get this now. I ask you the question today that I’ve asked groups, “what are the first five things you would do if you lost your job tomorrow?”

Corporate culture and how experienced workers are treated by management is more transparent than ever. Potential employees have to sort through the noise and scam messages online. However, sites like glassdoor.com, Indeed.com and others can shed light on management philosophy and practices. There are industry oriented sites, company specific sites and forums on job search sites.

Corporate America is (slowly) waking up to the potential of experienced workers staying in the workforce. In January 2015, the Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM) surveyed 1,913 HR professionals who rated experienced workers highly in knowledge, work ethic, professionalism and reliability. However, only 24% of the HR professionals saw the brain drain of knowledge leaving their organizations as a problem and 4% viewed it as a crisis. Some industries are more impacted than others. 39% of the American Airlines workforce is 50+ while 37% of the employees at Delta and United Airlines are 50+. The Federal government workforce is composed of 30% employees 50+. These organizations will have to face the challenges of losing their knowledge base before other companies.

More organizations are focused on next steps for emerging retirees. There are free resources for 50+ workers at encore.org, the Center on Aging & Work at Boston College have years of research for individuals and human resource professionals on their website and AARP has online resources on their website. Managing the Older Worker: How to Prepare for the New Organizational Order, Peter Cappelli’s 2010 book has ideas for leaders working with experienced workers. Excerpts of his classic have shown up in many 2015 magazines.

The experienced worker is top of mind this Labor Day!

Living Until 90 and Working Until 70

Monday Morning Pep Talk!


This week there is good news and bad news. The good news is that you, that's right Y-O-U could live into your ninth decade. Wow! Imagine you in your 90s. The bad news is that for a variety of reasons, you may find yourself working into your 70s. You may want to prepare for your long future by taking great care of yourself today and saving more money.


60 Minutes, the weekly CBS news show, recently aired a segment on the 90+ Study being conducted by the University Of California at Irvine. They are following a group of 90+ year old as a follow-up to a study that began in the 1980s.Two facts were identified in their research that gave me hope:


1. People in their study who drank moderate amounts of coffee and alcohol lived longer than those who abstained.


2. People who were overweight in their 70s lived longer than their normal weight and underweight friends.


So far, so good.


All of this was tempered with the bad news about dementia, disability and memory loss. Other research from the American Heart Association and Centers for Disease Control suggest weight training and resistance training play a critical role in successful aging.


Once you build the muscle, it is time to get to work! People work past 65 for a variety of reasons that are not financial. Creating social connections and feeling useful and productive were the top answers many in their 60s, 70s and 80s gave when surveyed on what factors besides money motivated them to work.


A bigger issue will be where will older workers will find employment and what will they experience in the workforce as far as attitudes of co-workers and managers? Never in history has the 90+ age group be among the fastest growing in the U.S. Today with advanced medical technology and more information about healthy lifestyles, you can expect to have the odds on your side of living past the average life expectancy of 79. So, this is the week to begin taking care of yourself and thinking about what your post-65 career plan. Make it a great week!

Owning Your Work/Life Balance

Monday Morning Pep Talk

You are one of the lucky ones, you have a job. If you feel like you’re working harder, you are probably right. According to the mandarins at the U.S. Department of Labor workers over fifty years old work harder than their younger counterparts because they value work more. In 2010, Professor Jean Twenge, from San Diego State University, published results of a generational differences study in the Journal of Management. The study found, “young workers place little value on teamwork, company loyalty and see their jobs as merely a means to make a living; they like their leisure time, want more vacations, and don’t want to be under a lot of pressure at work.”

It is up to you to carve-out some “me time” away from the pressures of work to create some work/life balance. Your company isn’t going to do it for you and working 60 hours-a-week is no guarantee you won’t get laid off in the next round of  job cuts.

"The impact that taking a vacation has on one's mental health is profound," said Francine Lederer, a clinical psychologist in Los Angeles who specializes in stress and relationship management. "Most people have better life perspective and are more motivated to achieve their goals after a vacation, even if it is a 24-hour time-out." Various other studies support the impact of vacations and time away from work on increased productivity, stress relief and a boost to overall health. So, why don’t more people take time off?

 Corporate America has a “24/7, never stop culture” and when senior corporate managers work seven days a week it permeates throughout the organization. Europeans embrace the idea of time away from work to recharge almost religiously. Vacations are enshrined in law. In countries like Germany, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, employers are required to provide up to 20 days of paid leave. Americans, on the other hand, get an average of 12 days every year. A study conducted by the Families and Work Institute found that less than half of U.S. employees take their full vacation benefit.

Probably the best evidence of the “vacation effect” can be found in the Framingham Heart Study, which scientists have examined for years to understand what contributes to our well-being. More than 12,000 men who were at risk of heart disease were followed over nine years to see if there were ways to improve their longevity. Among the questions they were asked annually was about vacations. "The more frequent the vacations, the longer the men lived," says Karen Matthews, of Pittsburgh’s Mind-Body Center, who analyzed the data to assess the benefits of vacations.

Even if you can’t afford a trip away or you are unemployed and feel guilty about taking any time off your job search, a “stay-cation” in your own town or house-swapping with friends or relatives from another city are ways to recharge your batteries. According to Matthews,"It is important to engage in multiple leisure activities, both as a way to enjoy life more, but also to potentially have a benefit on health and be a stress reliever.” This Monday Morning Pep Talk was written a little late as I am taking my own advice and enjoying some time off.

READ THIS BOOK

Monday Morning Pep Talk

The Coming Jobs War is the most important business book you have not read. It is by Jim Clifton, the Chairman and CEO of Gallup, the annoying pollsters who call you during dinner to ask a few questions. Generally, I am suspect of books published by companies where the author is the CEO or any other executive, but this 2011 tome had me hooked by page ten.

This is the point where I should mention to you that I was not sent a complimentary copy of this book since that happens now nor did I buy this book. I checked it out of the Fishers (Indiana) Public Library. For the audiobook-obsessed, I didn’t find it on audible.com, my favorite book download or as an audiobook. This book is a quick read at less than 200 pages and for my time-starved friends in the Human Resources profession—just read Chapter Eight, High Energy Workplaces, then I’ll bet you will read the rest.

Why this book is so important?

The subtitle is “What every leader must know about the future of job creation.”  For the age 40+ employee to redefine retirement and continue to work past what was normally considered standard—65 or maybe 62---there has to be jobs. We all know there are fewer jobs today and the decline began before the recession of 2008. Job creation has been an issue since the meltdown in 2001. That is when the perfect storm of the dot.com bubble, the September 11 attack and the implosion of Enron (which a year later would infect and destroy its accounting firm that had existed for ninety years) forever changed how senior management viewed headcount and FTEs. What this book does brilliantly is explain how to create jobs.

Why is this book vital to workers in their 40s and 50s?

You have read it here before; it has never cost more to retire. According to AARP, the “average” retiree is paying $300-$400 a month in Medicare supplements and co-pays. Even the best retiree health plans do not cover vision or dental. Then you have companies that cannot fund their pension obligations (read up on the city of Stockton, CA filing bankruptcy to learn more about this issue). Clifton explains why you can’t count on Medicare or Social Security (pages 33-35 for the skimmers). I’m not the chicken little-type or a survivalist building a bunker in the backyard—but as a realist, you have to surmise that both of these safety nets have big holes in them.

One of my dearest childhood friends resides in the suburbs of Detroit and Clifton uses the Motor City as a cautionary tale for where America is headed. While the book may have a United States orientation—there are global indications too. (Yeah! if you’re reading in China and not so smiley-faced everywhere else). For my dear friends in the health information management profession, chapter eleven was written to motivate you to keep fighting the good fight with EHR, EMR, e-Rx, and the other e-initiatives you are advocating to modernize health care.

I read the book and ran out to support small and medium-sized businesses (the future of job growth) this weekend; had the local bookstore order copies to send to my 2 good friends- the 55+ mayor of his town and the encore-career entrepreneur. Let me know what you think of the book--you can leave your comment anonymously.

Fortune Magazine's Workforce of 2022

The other day my January 16 issue of Fortune Magazine arrived in the mail. I was intrigued because instead of the usual business leader on the cover; it boasted a kind silvery version of Ryan Seacrest and called itself, “The Future Issue”. I devour Fortune like other people read People or US Weekly—which already gives you too much insight into my geeky obsession with business and the workforce. Who doesn’t want to know about the future?  So I dive right into their article on work.

Guess who is in the office of tomorrow in 2022? Their writer says there are going to be old, bald people with “salt-and-pepper eyebrows” and women in “orthopedic shoes” making their way into office buildings.  She goes on to predict, “...new drugs...will enable many people in their sixties and seventies to make the daily trek to an office or factory." When I read this in Fortune (one my favorite business magazines) I wasn’t sure if I should laugh, scream or cry. (Or maybe write a snarky letter to the editor like the one they published from me October 16, 1995—I’ve been reading for a long time). But, it is 2012—so I can put it in a blog post and send it 2,000 of my close friends.

Would it be old and mean of me to think the young lady who authored the article is a student? Because surely if she were in the workforce of TODAY—not the future, she would realize workers in their 50s, 60s and 70s peering at their smartphones through bifocals and bumping up the font on the screen for easier reading (hey, she said it, not me) is here. Maybe they don’t work at Fortune’s editorial offices, so she’s never seen us in action.  Or, and I hear this often—maybe we (older workers) are invisible to her.

Our writer blames the market crash of 2008 for the reason Baby Boomers are going to stay in the workforce and increase from 7.3 million today to 13.2 million workers over 65 in ten years. While there are plenty of people working for financial reasons, some of us choose to work longer. My Mom is 74 and works ten hours a week because she loves her profession. It is an opportunity to stimulate her brain, be around professional people, learn new things (yes, she has a smartphone, can text and use apps) and the money comes in handy too.

I don’t blame the writer for this prediction of “the workforce of future.” Anything that makes it to print in Fortune has been scrutinized by an editor or two and I think that is what worries me more. This type of characterization of older workers is not helpful. At a time when subtle bias against mature workers in some workplaces seeps into the corporate culture before the company has recognized their multigenerational workforce demands attention, Fortune missed an opportunity.

The writer could have easily talked to someone from the Sloan Center on Aging and Work at Boston College (http://www.bc.edu/research/agingandwork/about.html) or AARP (aarp.org) and I can guarantee her article would have taken a different tone.  So I am going to offer some predictions about “what happens to the workplace when seniors don’t leave” which is the question her piece supposedly answers. Visionary companies that integrate age issues into their strategic HR plan are going to have a sustainable competitive advantage. I agree with the Fortune writer that “companies will have to be creative about how they manage a workplace with staffs whose ages could span 60 years.” They do that by addressing the diversity issues a multigenerational workplace presents and it affects all areas of the company: talent management, learning and development, benefits, rewards/recognition and knowledge transfer. Some mature workers are at the “top of their game” considering skill, experience, emotional intelligence and confidence. Companies that minimize or ignore the impact a multigenerational workforce has on today and tomorrow’s corporate culture threatens morale, productivity and business results. Share your comments and let us know what you think.