Working people, frequently ask retired people what they do to make their days interesting. I didn't know, so I asked a friend of mine who retired a couple of years ago. He told me about a recent incident to illustrate how he tries to keep his mind active.
"Well, for example, the other day I went down town and into a shop. I was only there for about 5 minutes and when I came out there was a cop writing out a parking ticket.
I said to him, "Come on, man, how about giving a retired person a break?" He ignored me and continued writing the ticket. I called him a "Nazi." He glared at me and wrote another ticket for having worn tires. So I called him a "doughnut eating Gestapo."
He finished the second ticket and put it on the windshield with the first. Then he wrote a third ticket.
This went on for about 20 minutes. The more I abused him the more tickets he wrote.
Personally, I didn't care. I came downtown on the bus, and the car that he was putting the tickets on had a bumper sticker that said "McCain in 08"
I try to have a little fun each day now that I have a bit of time on my hands. It's important to my health."
So you see, just because people have taken the step into retirement, doesn't necessarily indicate that they have retired their thinking patterns. In the day of scarce skillsets, one source often overlooked is those who have retired, who are looking for a few hours a week to help them maintain their mental edge.
Thesolution for many employers today is a cocktail of creative hiring and retention strategies, all focused on older workers. Flexible work schedules, phased-out retirements, retention bonuses and mentoring younger workers are some of the ingredients.
These policies can attract skilled older workers in industries where skilled workers of any age are hard to find.
But more and more companies are focusing on hiring older workers, not only because they have to, but also because they want to.
Older Employees Are Assets
Borders Group Inc., the Ann Arbor, Mich.-based retailer, is among 13 American companies that have partnered with AARP to hire and retain workers 50 and older. Borders staffing managers began studying their company’s hiring and retention trends against census data in the late 1990s, says Dan Smith, Borders’ senior vice president of human resources. What they found was that their older workers were one of the company’s greatest assets.
“Our older workers brought a lot of benefits that even we were surprised by,” Smith says. “Their turnover rate was 10 times less than those under 30.”
Also, he says, Borders’ internal survey of worker satisfaction yielded much higher contentment among older workers than younger ones.
“I think [older workers] make better decisions about coming to work for us,” Smith says. “They’ve had careers already. They know what they like and dislike, and, when they come to us, they know they want to work for us.”
The AARP partnerships started with Atlanta-based Home Depot in 2002 after the home remodeling retailer sought out 30 private and nonprofit “hiring partners” to help create a staffing pipeline into its more than 1,900 stores, says Cindy Milburn, Home Depot’s senior director of staffing.
Like Borders, Home Depot battled the retail industry’s high attrition rates but also had specific hiring concerns, not only for demographic diversity, but also for skilled workers, Milburn says.
“We’re looking for skilled and knowledgeable workers—master plumbers, electricians, experienced kitchen and bath designers,” she says.
Home Depot’s staffing strategy was to set up several partnerships, first with the Department of Labor’s One-Stop Centers for people seeking work, followed by partnerships with various art institutes, AARP, the military and—the latest—with four national Latino groups.
“We have to have pipelines of talent where we build long-term relationships,” Milburn says. “It’s a different recruiting model than traditional retailing.”
Until three years ago, Home Depot’s store managers did their own hiring. While all the stores still have a hiring manager, that setup isn’t adequate for strategic hiring with a long-term outlook.
Home Depot has since formed a corporate recruiting team that develops a pipeline of available talent that stores can choose from. The process begins with a software program that weeds out most of the 17 million applications Home Depot receives every year.
But in addition to processing the usual influx of resumes, HR also uses strategic processes to attract older workers and retain those already on staff.
So if you're fishing for experiences talent and have come up with an empty net, perhaps you'll have better luck if you fish in a different pond. There's many recently retired that are actively being sought because they still have skills and abilities, but also bring a unique sense of humor to the workplace
Richard Florida on his popular blog Richard Florida and the Creative Class recently did an article about understanding why the millenials in the workplace continues to be a challenge for both employers and employees.
