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Retirement Wisdom

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Is Your Company Ready for the Aging Workforce? – Paul Rupert

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Companies are in various stages of being ready for an aging workforce. For example, only 9% offer formal programs for phased retirement, even though flexible work options are plentiful for other life stages. In this conversation on our retirement planning podcast, Joe talks with Paul Rupert, CEO of Respectful Exits about trends in the workplace for seasoned workers. Paul offers his views on what smart companies can do to attract and retain talented older workers. Paul also shares valuable advice on how individuals can approach negotiating phased retirement as part of flexible work options and tells us the story behind his new advocacy organization.

Bio

Paul Rupert is Chief Executive Officer of Respectful Exits. Paul has forty-five years of nonprofit management and consulting experience. He founded and managed innovative nonprofits in healthcare, legal services, mediation, publishing and advocacy campaigns. He played a pivotal role in promoting the practice of flexible scheduling and staffing throughout the economy. His firm Rupert Organizational Design has consulted to more than a hundred companies implementing creative flexible staffing and scheduling initiatives. His firm currently leads in the development of flexible and phased retirement programs.

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Wise Quotes

On How Companies Can Help Employees Prepare for Retirement

“…begin to get rid of that notion of people having reached their ‘Sell-By Date’. A lot of companies are moving in that direction. I think there are organizations that are beginning to recognize the need for ongoing financial wellness counseling. We promote very strongly the idea, that companies, primarily in the private sector, got rid of defined benefit pension plans. They have sufficient resources to provide ongoing, what we call financial wellness counseling to their employees. We call on employers to do that. There are examples of employers who essentially provide for annual financial checkups for this, on company time, and on the company dime. It’s a very modest investment and it makes an enormous difference, because as you probably well know, the failure to understand early in your career, the need to save, and to take responsibility for your own 401K, et cetera, is terribly important. Companies have a captive audience to whom they can, in an affordable way, provide that invaluable service. I was talking to a client the other day and they said, “We have a program in which we require our employees to have an annual automobile safety check, and we pay for it.” I said, “Well, do you do that with finances?” They said, “Well no, not really.” I said, “Well, you should.”

 

On Making An Effective Proposal for Phased Retirement 

“Phased-retirement is just another form of flexible work. If you’re going to make that proposal then, talk to your manager about what’s in it for the company for you to do this. Don’t talk about what’s in it for you…Just focus on, “If I work this way, these are the following benefits to the company. We suggest in the framework, show the general benefits that can accrue to the company, but also the specific components.  A  very concrete suggestion: ‘Here’s what I’m doing now and how. Here’s how I would work in a phased or a partial retirement setting.’ Secondly, and most importantly, it’s easy to talk about things like mentoring, and knowledge-transfer, and those are grand ideas. What knowledge do you have that is valuable for the company to retain? How do you qualify and quantify it?
Managers are trained to review and consider business proposals. So, whether it’s an equipment proposal, or a supply proposal, or a process, you come to them, say, ‘Here’s the package with my current offering, here’s what I’m suggesting as a replacement package. I think these are the benefits’ Then you put it in the framework that managers are comfortable deciding in. It’s not about, ‘Gee, I love Joe. He’s been wonderful,’ or, ‘This guy’s always been prickly, I really wish he were gone.’ You can set some of that stuff aside and say, ‘Hey, this actually will be good.‘
This is the other final point I’d make, there’s a tremendous mythology that what managers will do is what’s in the company’s interest. That is not necessarily the case. Companies may have lofty goals about how they want to support their aging workers, but it’s the manager who has to make these things work. So, if you, in the course of proposing, aren’t developing a win-win with the manager, how is he going look better? How is his work unit going to produce more and better work? What’s going to make his life easier? Then they’re not going to necessarily say yes in order to support lofty company goals. They might, but in my experience, the more you recognize that managers have a very, very tough job and lots of pressures on them, and if you’re going to make their life harder, there better be a good reason for it. If you’re going to make their life easier, they’re much more inclined to say Yes.”

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For more on Paul Rupert:

Website: Respectful Exits: The Voice of Aging Workers

Twitter @RespectfulExits

 

GAO Report to the Special Committee on Aging, U.S. Senate:

Older Workers – Phased Retirement Programs, Although Uncommon, Provide Flexibility for Workers and Employers

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Stay around for the Noteworthy segment on an article worth your time

This week’s selection is The Big Changes Ahead for Boomer Workers

by Richard Eisenberg – Next Avenue

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