Welcome back. This week's column is authored by Dr. Beverly Hyatt, an adjunct professor at Wilmington University and a former HR professional.

Many older people returned to work or continued working during the pandemic. After declining early in the pandemic, the employment rate for individuals between the ages of 55 and 64 years old climbed to 64% in May.

The workforce in that age group is expected to continue growing, creating an increasingly age-diverse culture in the workplace.

Employees also are more likely to work longer during a downturn in the economy, as they look to bolster their retirement savings and meet their financial needs, according to research published in the Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior in 2014.

Typically, many individuals choose to retire between the ages of 61 and 65, reported Arlene Hirsch, career counselor and Chicago-based author.

Anyone born in 1960 or later is eligible for full retirement benefits at age 67. Nearly 72 million adults were eligible for full Social Security benefits as of 2020, according to projections from the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion.

Ms. Hirsch says she expects employers to face a tidal wave of retirement turnover, leaving fewer employees with needed skills to fill the jobs and not enough younger workers to replace those who retire. She says 5 million experienced workers will be available to fill the 31 million jobs that will become vacant as the mass exodus begins.

The manufacturing industry already is experiencing this generational shift. Roughly 5% of the existing workforce is already beyond retirement age—and an additional 20% will reach retirement age within the next decade, according to a report released by the AARP and the Manufacturing Institute in November.

Employers would benefit from partnering with human-resources teams to create strategies that encourage older workers to postpone retirement. HR concerns relating to retaining, upskilling, training and development of older workers affect nearly every functional area of the HR taxonomy. As technology continues to advance, making formal policy changes and updating procedures to incentivize would help to retain the older worker, according to a recent AARP report.

Here are some incentives that companies can offer:

• Flexibility. Older workers should have the flexibility to schedule their work arrangements to include work/life balance and autonomous decision-making in tasks.                                                                                                                                                      
• Work-design interventions. Mentoring or other programs that allow older workers to coach and help develop newer or less experienced workers is an effective strategy to transfer knowledge and keep the older workers engaged, according to research published in the Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior.                            
• Stay interviews. Many older workers have a retirement plan already. However, conducting stay interviews can be an effective way to assess concerns, employee engagement and workers’ intention to retire, suggests Richard Finnegan, HR professional and author of “The Power of Stay Interviews for Engagement and Retention.”                                                             
• Allyship. More companies are engaging with older workers and creating affinity groups for onsite wellness programs, benefits coverage and retirement training. Options to openly discuss ways to make work more meaningful and accommodating to their specific issues (including pension benefits) can help keep older workers as loyal workers.

Organizations will only benefit from including older workers and realizing that valuable source of human capital.

Many older workers were pushed out of their jobs during the pandemic, according to recently published research by the Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis at the New School for Social Research. Since March 2020, the size of the retired population between ages 55 and 74 expanded beyond its normal trend by an additional 1.1 million people. Researchers say most of these retirements occurred after periods of unemployment, a break from the usual pattern of retirement after employment, and could be indicative of involuntary job departures.

Also, the numbers of people who retired involuntarily a year after losing a job was 10 times higher than in prepandemic times, the report found.

Another research conducted last fall found that many women between the ages of 50 and 64 are still reeling from the economic effects of Covid-19, and that they are likely to face acute hardships as costs continue to rise.

Nearly four in 10 women in that age cohort said the economy isn’t working well for them, according to an AARP survey last fall of 2,116 people who are older than 50. A third of the men in that age group also felt the same way.

And nearly half of the women in the survey, compared with 44% of the men, said as a result they had skipped medical care, reduced medication or cut back their own healthcare costs to pay for a loved one’s care.

Read more.

We talk about how she did that and speak with organizational psychologist Allison Gabriel about three keys all employees need to keep their passion for the job. Listen here.

Hybrid workers, beware: There can be a gap—sometimes a wide one—between what’s required and what it really takes to succeed.

Office hard-liners like Tesla CEO Elon Musk have made clear that “a minimum of 40 hours in the office per week” is the only way to thrive, or even survive, at his company. The leaders of Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan Chase also don’t hide their disdain for remote work.

While telecommuting may be fine in certain roles, people in the upper ranks “cannot lead from behind a desk or in front of a screen,” JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon wrote in his annual shareholder letter this spring.

Yet other businesses are promising “hybrid equity,” insisting some employees can enjoy the conveniences of working from home without compromising their ambitions.

HubSpot, a Boston-based digital marketing firm, plans to track promotions in the coming years to ensure people who rarely visit the office aren’t disadvantaged, says Katie Burke, chief people officer. Citigroup requires three days of office work per week, and human resources head Sara Wechter says those who log only the minimum will have an “equitable opportunity to develop and advance their careers.”

• Should You Undo Your Retirement and Go Back to Work? These Questions Might Give You the Answer. (WSJ)
   
• Everything Costs More, and That’s Disrupting Retirement for Many (WSJ)
   
• Learn More About Topics Related to Productive Aging at Work (National Center for Productive Aging and Work)
   
• Learn How Older Workers Are Important to the Success of Your Business (AARP Foundation)

Chitra Vemuri curated and edited this newsletter.

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