Age Power!
By Nancy Moffitt
With the baby boomer generation nearing 65, key
players at a recent Wharton conference weighed in
on retirement, a possible labor shortage, and the
strengths of an older work force.
Matthew London watched his older
brother move from the world of
work to a fairly standard retirement—to hobbies, travel and volunteer
work he hoped would keep his still-active mind sharp and give him a
place to contribute.
But his decades of business savvy
weren't put to use in his new role as
a hospital volunteer. The filing and other clerical work left
him feeling empty, he confided to his younger brother—it
seemed little more than "busy work."
London, W'51, observed his brother's new life with empathy—and wariness. "I didn't want to retire and be unhappy,"
he said. "I wanted to keep working—to stay in my
field."
And so he has. At age 75, London runs Philadelphia
University's distance learning program as well as teaching
courses in its business school, a four-day-a-week schedule he
has no plans to scale back. "It's an enjoyable life," he says.
"I'm ready to keep on going."
London is a part of an unprecedented demographic shift:
in most of the developed world, the workforce is aging. In
the U.S. alone, nearly 20 percent of American workers will
be 55 and over by 2012, up from 12 percent in 1992. As the
proportion of younger workers continues to decline, attracting
and retaining mature workers will become all the more
critical for businesses, with many labor economists predicting
severe labor shortages by 2015.
From MSNBC to The Philadelphia Inquirer, the media
is replete with stories about this "age wave" and the many
issues that are just beginning to unfold as a result. Will the
oft-predicted labor shortage really materialize? How will
companies in the U.S. and abroad be affected by an aging
workforce? What must mature employees do to remain current
and valuable within organizations? And what should
employers do to recruit, retain, train, and address the needs
of older workers?
"Companies haven't figured this out yet," said William
Novelli, C'63, CG'64, CEO of the American Association
of Retired Persons (AARP). "On one hand, we have some
executives asking how they should recruit and retain older
workers. On the other hand, we have others asking how to
get rid of them. We have conflicting trends at the moment—it will be interesting to see what happens. Right now, this
is a story that's unfolding."
Last fall, Novelli and a slate of national experts gathered
at Wharton to study and discuss the aging workforce at a
one-day conference sponsored by the Wharton Center for
Human Resources, Wharton's Boettner Center for Pensions
and Retirement Research, and the AARP. Labor economists
from The Conference Board, corporate CEOs, academics
and government officials from the U.S. Department of
Labor shared thoughts on everything from the ability and
performance of older workers to the benefits implications for
an aging workforce.
"The big issue here is practical rather than policy," says
Wharton management professor Peter Cappelli, director of
the school's Center for Human Resources and a speaker at
the conference. "With the baby boomer generation about
to begin a wave of retirements, a very large group of experienced,
often highly-skilled workers are leaving their current
employers, and increasing numbers of them would like to be
doing something in the labor market even if it doesn't look
like what they did before. If companies want to tap them,
how do they do it? Employers who cannot adapt to embrace
these workers will miss a significant source of competitive
advantage."
- Brains Versus Braun
- A Coming Labor Shortage?
- Older Workers Wanted
- A Reason to Get up in the Morning
- Reaching Out to Older Workers in America: A Sampling
- Benefits for Older Workers? Don’t Count on Them
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