How to Keep Workers on the Job:
‘Tell us you love us’

What does it take to keep valued older workers on the job? Many American companies facing a labor shortage are asking that question, and the answer may be simply “Tell us you love us, then ask us to stay.”

In a study just released by the Washington-based Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI), a startling 61 percent of 5,000 retirees surveyed said they would have reacted positively to a request to stay on the job—if it had been made. In fact, about one in four respondents reported having been asked to stay, and most of those requests came from an empty-handed immediate supervisor rather than from a more senior executive bearing incentives.

The study covered retirees ages 55 to 65 only from the aerospace and defense industries—many were engineers with security clearance, highly skilled and hard to replace. Almost all had defined benefit pension plans, medical insurance and workplace retirement savings plans, an array of retirement benefits that is becoming rare in America. Three out of four said that the most important factor driving their decision to retire was simply that they could afford to.  

While such retirees are not typical of the broader American workforce, Dallas L. Salisbury, president and CEO of EBRI, says that their attitudes are not far off from other employees who can afford to retire.

Many respondents felt they had been underappreciated: 64 percent cited not being valued by the company as an important reason for leaving. And nearly half said that feeling truly needed for an assignment would have been “extremely” or “very” effective in a decision to delay retirement.

Many also felt that younger workers were given the more interesting work assignments and received higher evaluations and the larger share of merit pay raises. They reported feeling marginalized and ignored by managers.

Says Salisbury, “I was personally surprised by the number of individuals who said ‘Telling me that I was appreciated and making it clear that you wanted me to continue working would make a difference in my decision to retire.’ ”

 Dan Yager, senior vice president of the HR Policy Association, which helped design the study, says increasing job satisfaction, which includes recognition for work well done, is critical in retaining employees who might otherwise retire.

“One of the major takeaways from the survey,” he says, “is that communication between employee and employer is very important.”

And often lacking. An employer may be cautious about broaching the retirement issue for fear of creating anxieties or raising complicated legal issues.  But, says Yager, the study showed that “employers need to let employees  know where they stand.”

Companies, of course, may also need to offer a bit more than a pat on the back and a few kind words to retain valued employees. Among the incentives cited as important by the defense and aerospace retirees in the survey were:

Allow those of retirement age to collect all or part of their pensions while they continue to work.  

Permit retirees to work part time or on a contract basis.

Compress the workweek into three or four days.

Allow employees to work from home.

Free them from administrative tasks and allow them to concentrate on design projects, an incentive especially important in aerospace and tech firms.

Allow workers to take extended leave, up to two months, for example, freeing them to travel.

Continue company-subsidized health insurance for part-time employees.

Protect workers from the possibility of lower pension payments because of  changing interest rates during their extended work years.

Offer a pay raise. Yes, money does still matter, although, as the survey discovered, not as much as less tangible incentives.

Offer incentives in advance. For incentives to be effective, they should be communicated at least two years before the retirement date.

Complete survey results are available at www.ebri.org.

Barry Hillenbrand is a former writer and editor for Time magazine.