There are a number of reasons why people may decide to work past the traditional retirement age – whether it’s because they can and want to, or because they may need to. As people are living longer, with a better quality of life, that often translates to not wanting to finish working at the standard age. Of course, sometimes the reason may be more pressing, such as a financial imperative. Whatever the reason, understanding how to support people who continue in their role will ensure that they thrive and everyone – including the business – benefits.
To retire or not to retire, that is the question
The reasons behind whether someone retires or keeps working past retirement age are many, says Professor Rose Anne Kenny, medical gerontology at Trinity College and St James’s Hospital. “The first thing is, pensions are a big determinant of when people retire, how much people are dependent on their pensions, and how much or if their pensions will cover their period of retirement. In other words, how much is it that it’s necessary for people to continue working financially?
“Another determinant is choice – whether you have a choice to keep working or not. I know quite a number of people in the last decade who had to retire at 65 or 66 in the public service who were really thriving in their work and contributing, and did not want to stop – or would have liked to continue in some capacity, maybe not in a full-time way, but weren’t able to. If you are working longer in the workplace, hopefully that is by choice, because forced working in the workplace for longer is not good for people’s health.”
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Making the choice
While traditionally it tended to be self-employed people who chose to continue working past the usual retirement age, more and more people are making the decision to stay in the workforce at all levels and types of organisations.
“We have several colleagues working throughout our organisation who are continuing to work beyond the normal retirement age,” says Denise White-Hughes, employee relations director, LIDL Ireland and LIDL Northern Ireland. “This isn’t a significant number at present, but I expect that year on year we will see this increase.
“The feedback that I’m hearing is more than ever people just want the choice to be able to work beyond the normal retirement age, people want to feel in control of their careers.”
Benefitting from experience
There are many benefits for businesses where people wish to stay on longer than usual. In fact, lots of studies have shown that mixed-age workplaces are great for productivity, says Professor Kenny. “Older workers bring great knowledge and historical awareness. At a crude level, having older workers with historical business knowledge reduces errors because past experience has informed that a certain pathway will lead to certain errors.
“The big benefits to people working longer in a business are experience, knowledge, and historical and institutional memory. Wisdom is hugely valuable – and undervalued. We can’t – but we do – underestimate the value of this wisdom and what it can bring to an organisation.”
White-Hughes agrees on the many benefits of wisdom and experience. “The most obvious advantage for us is the retention of our most experienced and knowledgeable colleagues. The second advantage for us is being able to attract people to Lidl later in their careers. We are very aware that having a broad spectrum of different types of people within our organisation adds to the richness and innovation of the working environment.”
Supporting the decision
For companies where people do choose to work longer, there are many things that can be done to support that choice, says Professor Kenny. “There are changes that will have to take place both to the physical environment and also the cognitive environment. It may be that you can continue working at the same pace and with the same deliverables – that will depend on the type of work. Clearly, there’s a difference between manual and non-manual work.”
Accommodating older staff around technological advancements is important, as is giving them time to learn – and not writing them off for not picking something up as quickly as a younger colleague. “Some older people may not be as adept at IT, for example, so accommodations should be made. Value the wisdom and experience but accommodate the fact that newer tech might be challenging.”
“We have a huge array of employee benefits available to all colleagues, including various kinds of training,” says White-Hughes. “Once a colleague decides that they would like to retire and would like to start planning for it we arrange training through the Retirement Council of Ireland and discuss how they would like their working hours to look in the build-up to retirement.
“Once again, the power of choice is so important, colleagues can decide if they would like phased retirement or to work their normal hours up until they finish work.”
“I think it’s very important to canvas what individuals feel their needs and requirements are, and to have an approach that is not ageist so that individuals don’t feel they’re being singled out because of their age,” says Professor Kenny. “It’s important an organisation embraces their older workers and makes them feel a valued part of the workplace.”