Coshocton Tribune

July 11, 2005

 

Retirement for many baby-boomers means work -- with fun, flexibility

By Seth Roy and Mindy Fetterman

re-tire v.: 1. to go away, retreat, or withdraw ...

That might be Webster's definition, but as the first of America's 79 million baby boomers reach age 62 in 2008, they are going to change the meaning of the word.

Boomers are likely to continue working, either part time or full time, as consultants or by setting up their own companies, surveys show. They want a "flexible" workplace that lets them take extended sabbaticals, then work intensely for shorter periods of time. They want to "phase-in" retirement by working fewer hours as they near 65, or after. They might change careers, go back to school, volunteer. They're not quite sure yet.

They do know they don't want to keep working like dogs, as they've been doing. Yet, they don't want to hit the golf course full time, either.

"I work very hard, and would I like a few years off? Yes," says Ken Dychtwald, 55, a psychologist and gerontologist. "But would I love to never work again? No, that's not my dream. And it's not the dream of our generation."

In a 2001 survey of boomers, 80 percent said they were planning to work past 65, at least part time, according to AARP.

Many will do it because they have to; they need the money, AARP says. This generation has every expectation that they will live longer than the previous one. Yet, few have saved enough money for 30 years of full retirement.

But there's a second reason they have for wanting to keep working, according to the survey: "Desire to stay mentally active."

"Boomers are going to redefine what we think of as aging. We'll reject the term 'aging' or 'elderly,' " says Deborah Russell, AARP director of economic security. "Many boomers want less responsibility; they've done the management thing. They're looking for more meaningful work, to hone their skills, to still contribute -- but to have flexible work options."

Going away, then coming back

John Ayers, a former city recreation director, teacher and golf coach at Coshocton High School, retired about 14 years ago.

"I can't remember that, even," he said.

But Ayers, like many in the baby boomer generation, did not stay retired. He now works roughly 20 hours a week in the pro shop at River Greens Golf Course in West Lafayette.

When he retired, he didn't want to just retire and sit around the house, so he didn't.

"You've got to be careful," Ayers said. "I think you need to be active. I think that's the key."

Working now has helped Ayers to stay social, as well as feel good, he said.

"I think you need to be involved with people," he said. "I feel better now than I felt when I was 40."

Ayers enjoys his time at the golf course, and plans to work there as long as health allows him.

"River Greens provides me great people to work for," he said.

He is kept busy with the job, but enjoys the busy times.

"Sometimes there's a lot of pressure, especially when you have a crowd," Ayers said. "I run all the high school tournaments up here."

David Brown, 65, has been retired twice.

"I've retired so much," he said. "(That) I work just so I can retire again."

Brown retired from the military in 1976, then from the postal service in 2003. Now he works at Buehler's as part of the bagging crew, when it gets extra busy. Most of the time, Brown can be seen working outside cleaning the parking lot and weeding the area.

"Oh, I'm qualified for this job," he said. "The first thing you learn in the military is how to pick up cigarette butts."

Brown said he keeps on working so he has something to do with his time.

"I need a reason to get up and go," he said.

In addition to his 25-hour work week, he works on a farm and raises horses. Brown enjoys his time at work.

"Buehler's is a really good place to work for," he said.

Linda Eaton, former manager for Super 8 Motel, thinks the same way about her new employer, Hopewell Industries.

"It's very rewarding," she said. "It just gives me a lot of joy."

Eaton said she couldn't see herself retiring and not having anything to do.

"I'm too young to retire and not do anything," she said. "I've worked most of my life in service-related positions. Then I retired, and all of the sudden I was here by myself. I thought: 'No, I've got to do something."

So she did. And now she works at Hopewell Industries helping people who really need the help.Eaton, Brown and Ayers aren't baby boomers; they're a bit older. But they're part of what Ken Dychtwald, 55, author of "Age Power: How the 21st Century will be Ruled by the New Old," calls the "guinea pig generation." They're testing out phased-in retirement and phased-back-in working lives in advance of the big wave behind them.

"It's like in exploration; the scouts see it first. They may fall off the cliffs, but we're getting to see them experiment with retirement," Dychtwald said. "We boomers have an advantage."

It wasn't until the 1960s that the American vision of retirement came to be the "golden years" of playing golf and sitting beachside, he says. The combination of a booming middle class after World War II, union-backed pensions and the growth of entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare led to a generation of financially sound seniors.

Before that, you essentially worked until you died.

"It's a relatively fascinating notion of the second half of the 20th century that retirement is a wonderful thing and that you are entitled to be happy, no matter how long you live," Dychtwald said.Numbers worry employers

American business is facing a massive retirement of workers over coming decades without the padding of a big generation to fill their shoes. The number of workers ages 45 to 64 is going to jump 52 percent by 2010. But the number of workers ages 35 to 44 -- those in prime position to replace the boomers -- will drop 10 percent, according the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Demand is expected to far exceed the U.S. labor force as the mega-generation retires, according to the Employment Policy Foundation in Washington, D.C. "We've got a looming labor shortage, and I don't think we can get enough labor overseas," says Janemarie Mulvey, EPF chief economist.

In small but growing numbers, companies are beginning to offer programs to keep and lure older workers. Some have been doing it for years.

Monsanto has a Resource Re-entry Center with a database of retirees who want to work part time, full time or on special assignment. After a six-month retirement, they can join. The program, started in 1991, has 300 people in the database, with about 200 on assignment now at 12 Monsanto operations nationwide.

"We have (workers) in every area you can imagine, from very technical research to IT to sales to distribution to accounting to auditing," says Deb Lebryk, director of external relations for Monsanto, which is headquartered in Stamford, Conn. "We even have an individual who has considerable interest in travel who does audits across the world. She's been to Brazil, Argentina. She'll call us and say, 'I'm in Antwerp. Any work you want me to do?' "

Mitre offers phased-in retirement with fewer hours or fewer workdays and has a corps of "reserves at the ready" -- retirees who'll come back to work on specific, short-term projects.

Mitre, with headquarters in Bedford, Mass., and McLean, Va., is a government contractor that manages federally funded research and development centers for the Department of Defense, the Federal Aviation Administration and the IRS. It started the retiree program in the early 1980s because it became concerned that it could lose too much institutional knowledge as its workforce retired.

"A lot of the work we do requires folks who have been there, done that," says Bill Albright, director of quality of work life and benefits. In fact, 40 percent to 50 percent of the hires the company makes each year are over age 40; the average age of employees is 47, and it "creeps up each year," he says.

The company also needs the expertise of people who have worked in industry or government. "We have to be able to get inside our clients, to understand their culture, their technology, their operating systems," Albright says.

The Aerospace Corp., based in El Segundo, Calif., is another government contractor that worries about continuity. It has 40 to 50 employees in its workforce of 3,500 who are over age 70, says Charlotte Lazar-Morrison, director of human resources. The Aerospace Corp. allows workers to "try out" retirement by taking a leave of absence and then returning to work. It also has the "casual retiree" program that Thompson is part of.

"With this contingent workforce, you can use it as you need it," says Lazar-Morrison. "It's a great surge mechanism for high-demand times."

CVS had a different problem. It realized in the early '90s that its workforce didn't reflect the U.S. population. It was too young, and turnover was too high. Only 7 percent of its workforce was over 50. "We want our stores to mirror the customer, so we needed to hire older people," says Stephen Wing, director of government programs for CVS, headquartered in Woonsocket, R.I.

It went on a campaign to hire and retain older workers. Now, 17 percent of the workforce of about 150,000 people is over 50. It gives workers flexibility on hours, days and the jobs they do. A pharmacist might become a pharmacy technician; the work is good, but less demanding. Or employees might move south part of the year, but still have a home in the North.

One woman in that position said she'd have to quit. "Well, we have stores in Florida and up north, I told her," says Wing. "She can transfer back and forth."

Companies, he says, are going to have to become more flexible if they want to get and keep the best employees.

That's the kind of talk baby boomers like.