While You Weren't Looking....

Timing is everything. It is used by the most strategic communicators to insure their message doesn’t hit a busy news day and is drowned out by other stories. Johnson & Johnson’s announcement Thursday that they are suspending their defined benefit pension plan for employees who join the firm after January 1, 2015 was a timed release. Thursday was September 11, Patriot’s Day in the United States and a day of remembrance when the news media, even the business media was focused on what happened in America thirteen years ago. It was the perfect day for the world’s biggest maker of health care products to release that news to media. On September 10, J&J management presented a rosy, yet cautious picture at the Morgan Stanley Health Care Conference. On September 11 you tell your workforce the pension plan won’t be there for your kids when you get them hired. Timing.

So, this is the part of the blog post, where I share in full transparency that I am an early retiree of J&J. At this point, I know from the scant news coverage this story garnered, that current retirees (like me) and active employees are not impacted. This action is for new hires and re-hires after 1/1/2015, I know that because I read it on the Internet. I probably have a letter coming from J&J’s benefit service center’s HQ in Lincolnshire, IL explaining I am not impacted at all. That letter hasn’t arrived yet. Timing.

I am certainly not surprised J&J’s defined benefit plan went away. I came to work for the company primarily because they offered the plan. In my 21 years of work prior to joining the health care giant my previous employers only offered 401(k) or defined contribution plans. In 401(k) plans you pay and the company matches. In defined benefit (DB) plans, the company pays 100% and you are guaranteed* a set amount for life or in J&J’s plan design until you are 90-years-old. I’ll figure out what to about 90 to death when I get there. According to a report by Towers Watson, an employee benefit consulting firm, about 24% of Fortune 500 companies offer “DB” plans to new hires in a considerable decline over the years.

Hopefully, you read the previous blog post: Pension Smoothing, Potholes & Pork. I highly recommend it.  

http://workinglater.blogspot.com/2014/09/pension-smoothing-potholes-and-pork.html

DB plans are notorious for being underfunded (aka not having enough money to pay the amount of money owed). J&J is no different. From a J&J public website on strategic framework—oh forget it, I’ll just let corporate communications speak for themselves:

“At the end of fiscal year 2012, the projected benefit obligation was $21,829 million, and the fair value of the assets equaled $17,536 million, for a shortfall of $4,293 million. Discretionary contributions are made when deemed appropriate to meet the plan’s long-term obligations. For more information, see Note 10 in our 2012 10-K Annual Report.”

All I know is when I do get ready to tap into my DB money, I hope there is a big pile of cash with my name on it and the plan is not “short” (aka underfunded, broke, busted…). Timing.

Pension Smoothing, Potholes and Pork

Generally I keep politics out of this blog. Then I heard about pension smoothing. It is the latest sleight of hand trick in government and don’t worry, it is equally loved by all political parties and even many labor unions. On the surface it appears to be a victimless maneuver only affecting the millions of people counting on a future pension payment from American companies. So, what is pension smoothing?

Simply put, pension smoothing allows companies to defer making mandatory contributions to defined benefit pensions plans in order to use that money for any reason they choose. Pension smoothing was added to a recent transportation bill that covers repairs to highways, bridges and subways saving the Highway Trust Fund from bankruptcy. Just to make the entire situation more complicated, in addition to funding the highway work, this bill also saves 700,000 American jobs.

Here’s the risk: To solve the short-term issues of maintaining the nation’s road infrastructure; companies do not have to fully fund their pension plans which may mean more plans won’t have the money to meet their obligations to pensioners later. According to a survey by Pensions & Investments, a money management newspaper, the largest 100 U. S. pension plans were underfunded by $122.3 billion in 2013 and that was an improvement!

Companies today put much of the retirement burden on the employees by focusing on 401(k) plans where workers cobble together a DIY strategy to save for the future. However, there are millions of employees counting on employer-paid defined benefit plan payouts for at least a portion of their wealth when they are too old to work. Pensions are in trouble as city and municipal workers in Detroit, Stockton, CA along with Pennsylvania school districts and other public employees across the country realize. Private sector pensions are no better as the retirees of Hostess Brands, who bring us Wonder Bread, Twinkies and other goodies, learned in 2012 when the company filed bankruptcy. The PBGC, Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, a government agency had to step in and rescue their plan.

The concept of the PBGC is itself an oxymoron. The same Congress that is encouraging companies to delay funding their pensions has a safety net for 44 million workers covered by defined-benefit private pension plans, the PBGC. When private sector firms cannot meet their liability, the PBGC pays an amount less than the company-promised benefit, but it is something. The problem is that in their July 3, 2014 annual report, the PBGC says it is “90% likely to run out of funds in 2025.” The biggest birth year of Baby Boomers will be 68-years-old in 2025 with plenty of life ahead of them, but maybe not as many job prospects.

Creating a Career Path: A Personal Story

Friend of the Blog--Tiffany Hatfield shares her story of deciding on a career path. As our careers evolve over time and we choose one opportunity over another or decide to remain with one company instead of making a move, we are creating a path. Some create it consciously and for others one day comes after another and things happen to us. Like Tiffany, I prefer to blaze my own career trail. That isn't necessarily the right approach for everyone. Thank you Tiffany for letting us look inside your decision points in creating your career path

By Tiffany Hatfield, linkedin.com/tiffanyhatfield1

This year I began to reconsider the focus of my work. This article lays out that process.

Fresh out of grad school, I began work as a nonprofit division manager. In twelve years I doubled the budget, tripled the program base, managed two strategic plan processes and completed a nine-year project to achieve national accreditation for the site.

But the organization I worked for had no position that I could be promoted to. And after twelve years, I needed a change.

So I left the organization and started consulting, specializing in grant research, strategy and proposal writing, all of which were part of my previous job, this time for cultural and human service organizations.

The business goal? To find two or three part-time contracts that would fill the work week. Did that happen? Heck no.

I ended up spending thirteen years riding the waves of cyclical grant deadlines, and learning how to look at my budget in 4-month increments.

Many months, days, nights and weekends in 2013 were spent serving the largest client load I’d ever had (!), but the downside was that I started to feel the pangs of burnout.

Something had to change, but what? Continue in grant writing alone, or expand to other forms of writing? Leave self-employment? If so, doing what?

I had to find answers, and fast. I discovered the incredible gift of informational meetings, and the time and advice from people whose work I respected (some I’d never even met before!).   

So I set up the annual calendar of work with my clients and began a dogged pursuit to the answers to my questions. My resources became (and still are) Passport to Employment (golove.org/passport), Work One (workoneindy.org), Accountability Group at WorkOne, and lots and lots and lots of networking. Lots of it. Lots.

From one colleague’s recommendation, I added blogging and article writing to my work. You’d think that I would naturally have done that already, but all my writing energies went to the client, and those grants rarely had my name on them. It is exciting now to contribute to Inside Edge, a daily Indiana business news e-blast, about how to seek grants (the Perspectives column), and also to serve as a contributor here, on LinkedIn, and hopefully more by the end of this year.  

So, going forward from here, I’ll continue consulting until I am eventually employed with one organization. And I’ll keep writing regardless of where I’m working. Thank you for reading!

Powering a Mid-Life Career with LinkedIn

 Brenda's Interview with Dave Meeker

LinkedIn is a valuable resource for everyone from recent graduates, the employed, entrepreneurs, job seekers, companies and everyone in between. Dave Meeker, LinkedIn and Technology Consultant, has helped all of the above and more through his workshops and one-on-one consulting sessions. Meeker began working with the LinkedIn social networking service in 2008 and continues to help professionals maximize the "Power of Their LinkedIn Profile."

“For the recent graduate, LinkedIn is important to develop a network,” says Meeker. He described how students at Butler University created LinkedIn accounts as part of a marketing class project. “For the employed LinkedIn is an important tool to create and develop a network while being open to new opportunities or career advancements." LinkedIn is mission critical to the job seeker, "it is urgent and important,” explained Meeker. Job seekers and others benefit from LinkedIn’s mobile capabilities with up to six mobile Apps by using the ability to quickly seize opportunities and identify key contacts according to Meeker.

One of the tools Meeker teaches in his workshops is how to use keywords, otherwise known, as his unique phrase, "the language of LinkedIn." He describes the language of LinkedIn as a series of keyword phrases that leads recruiters to their profile. A proprietary algorithm adds to the profile ranking process. Meeker believes he has figured out this algorithm.

Why is LinkedIn constantly changing?

"What a lot of people don’t understand about LinkedIn is that it is constantly changing. As the growth of mobile devices and their Apps increase, it appears new Apps and updates to existing Apps will feed this exponential growth of the mobile market." As LinkedIn continues to change and push out rolling updates, Meeker believes he recognizes these patterns before the documentation appears on line.

How important is a photo on a LinkedIn profile? “Since there are fake accounts that generate spam and data mine contact's information, a photo shows you are a real person. The photo is part of your LinkedIn brand that includes your headline, location, current occupation and industry,” said Meeker.

Other expert LinkedIn tips from Meeker include the importance of recommendations from former co-workers. “Recommendations are a lot more important than endorsements on LinkedIn” according to Meeker.  These recommendations provide opportunity to share a STAR (Situation Task Action Response) story or other accomplishments.

To realize the value proposition as a LinkedIn user, Meeker focuses his audience on what he calls, VCR. “Value, Content and Relevance are what users should consider when creating their 360 degree view of their skill, knowledge and experience. Their overall profile should answer the answer the question, "what can you do for me?” says Meeker. The VCR concept is also an imperative part of making posts and making comments, especially with groups.

Currently LinkedIn boasts more than 300 million users and according to Bloomberg business, the company will attempt to expand its user base in China to combat slower growth in the United States. While users are focused on professional networking, LinkedIn generates revenue from advertising, upgrading users to premium accounts and fees charged to recruiters and staffing companies.

While LinkedIn is a space most professionals want to participate in, beware of spam or fake accounts and learn to manage emails and notifications by adjusting your settings under Privacy and Settings.. When in doubt about how to leverage LinkedIn as a resource to grow a business or expand a career, there are experts like Dave Meeker to the rescue! If you’d like to connect with Dave Meeker, you can find him easily on LinkedIn, of course!

Success in Autumn

“When we are young, we learn. When we are old, we understand.”

--Marie Von Ebner-Eschenbach

Re-imagine the Spring of Youth giving way to the Summer of Adulthood and an inevitable decline in Autumn and Winter. What if, the longer life spans we enjoy in the 21^st century are a gift of extra time to accomplish goals resting silently inside our hearts? No one knew that you always wanted to learn to play the keyboard or learn Spanish or visit Yosemite. Now that studies are predicting lifespans of ninety years as nearly average; we are challenged to find excuses to not live our dreams.

In her book, In Our Prime: The Invention of Middle Age, Pat Cohen offers a reason to believe middle age careers can be extended. “Generation X has nearly 30 million fewer members than the 78 million strong baby boom generation. Even though many from this group will work past 65, there will still be fewer employees overall,” according to Cohen’s research. It sounds like great news, but what is the best course of action to take while waiting for the business world to beat a path to the door of the 50, 60 and 70+ worker? Remember this:

·         Reid Hoffman founded LinkedIn at age 35. (Old by Silicon Valley standards)

·         Col. Harland Sanders founded Kentucky Fried Chicken  at age 65

·         Grandma Moses began painting at age 78 (she painted 25 paintings after turning 100 years old)

·         Diana Nyad swam from 110 miles Cuba to Miami in 53 hours at age 64 on her fifth attempt

·         Henry Kaiser established Kaiser Permanente w/ a business partner at age 63

Most of these people lived in America at a time when the average life expectancy was closer to 70. Could the fact that I listed above were engaged in work of their calling give them additional years to make the impact they desired? What is your calling? What is the project you are so passionate about, that you lose track of time?

There is a lot of information online about jobs, careers and callings. Time slows down so a person may discover which phase they are experiencing: a job, a career or a calling. There is no right or wrong answer and each serves a purpose. It is  going to vary for each of individual. As a mid-career professional, just know your best ideas may still be inside of you and like Reid, Col. Sanders, Grandma Moses, Diana and Henry--your greatest accomplishments in life may be realized in your autumn years.

  

Are You Invisible at Work?

In a society where the President of the United States takes “selfies” and people are judged by their number of Twitter followers, LinkedIn connections or Facebook “friends”; it is easy for older workers to feel invisible at work. No one who knows me personally would consider me a shrinking violet by even a stretch of the imagination. However, even I was told by a former manager that none of his peers knew who I was and it made it difficult to “sell” me as a candidate for special assignments. His suggestion was that I do something “crazy” to get noticed. Then when he mentioned me again to the other managers they would remember me as the one who sang karaoke or did the splits at a sales meeting. After a nanosecond of careful consideration, I decided to decline his career advice.

After that discussion I began to observe other workers more closely and discovered a trend. In a room filled with multi-generational employees if a younger manager was leading the discussion; the older workers listened more and contributed less. If the manager was older (50s- 60s) the conversation was more collaborative with people of all ages participating. Watch in your next company meeting and see if holds true for your organization. I am not sure what particular dynamic this phenomenon indicates, but it has been consistent. Younger workers in their 20s and 30s exhibited an almost “Horschak” quality (fans of the mid-70s hit, Welcome Back Kotter will remember Arnold Horschak). When he raised his hand in class he wanted to be called so badly he grunted. And, so were the grunts of the Millennial and GenerationX’ers hoping to have their voices heard. Everyone has to be handed the microphone to make a comment.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered a new book, The Invisibles by David Zweig that examines this from a management perspective not through a generational lens. It discusses people who are not necessarily at work to tout their brand, expand their platform or increase their Klout score. They are there to do the job and take satisfaction in completing work correctly. It sounds like many 40+ workers who take pride in a job well done. Every time they finish a project, they are not running to their manager for validation or firing off a series of e-mails or my new favorite term—humblebragging. (i.e. Humble Brag- when one consciously brags about themselves while couching it in a phony show of humility). Humblebragging  is prevalent on Facebook and Twitter.

Invisibles are a management challenge. In some organizations they are taken for granted because they don’t survive on recognition or the jealous applause of their peers. I know older workers that have watched the rise and fall of self-promoting young peers that were given more responsibility than they could handle. (Who read the 1969 classic, The Peter Principle? His premise is true). How many corporate lay-offs have targeted people capably getting the work done and kept megaphone toting stars only to add headcount because they laid off the people who did the work? It is true there are older workers who also bask in faux modesty, banter about how hard they work and have pet names for their young peers---that is annoying too. Making sure people know you and your work is important in the current corporate culture.  It is also difficult for many experienced workers who matured in an era that didn’t include social media, so strive for balance.

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!