All around the world, companies are competing for who can offer the best family benefits, who can attract the most millennials with modern policies, and who can upgrade their infrastructure fast enough to draw in tech-savvy employees. As it gets increasingly difficult to find the skilled team members you need to fill key open positions, businesses are being forced to get creative in the way they draw in new employees and, sometimes, even ‘poach’ employees from each other. Some try catered lunches, others use company retreats or charitable publicity. A few are even realizing where the niche pockets of skilled experts are hiding, just out of sight of the workforce. A common enough tactic is to ask parents to come back from raising their kids, perhaps after the little ones have started attending school, but there’s another population that’s got even more professional experience and might be getting bored enough to consider returning to the workforce.
The Retired Experts
The world has been moving forward quite rapidly in the last few decades and most companies are more focused on catching up with the times than looking backward at the successes of the past. However, experts who have been working their industries for fifty or more years know the works by heart and often were perfectly happy keeping up with the tech developed specifically for their industry. Many continue to stay up-to-date after they retire as a form of hobby. These professionals didn’t suddenly lose all their skills at the age of 65, they just got the option of kicking back and relaxing for a while. Should even a small percentage of the retired professionals choose to re-enter the workforce, this employment crunch would be significantly reduced.
Recently Retired Boomers
The boomers, one of our undeniably largest generations, have just recently begun to retire, pulling a large number of people out of the workforce and, in part, causing the current employment crunch, and more boomers are retiring every year. What this means is that the career is still fresh in their minds and muscle memories. Whatever these retirees have recently left behind, they are also more than capable of picking back up again, if they thought that might be an enjoyable and rewarding choice.
Second Careers
Many retirees, after the first couple years of sipping drinks, tending a garden, and possibly going on RV vacations, will realize that they’re bored. A career serves as a point of excitement, motivation, and personal pride and a lot of elderly people find themselves taking up what is known as a “second career”. This usually takes the form of part-time hours either doing a hobby or returning to a low-impact version of what they did before retirement as a way to reenter the familiar and comforting industry.
Inviting Retirees Back to Work
The key to making your company appealing to retirees is to rethink the way you handle recruiting and even team building. Work that might have taken one ambitious, energetic normal employee might be comfortably filled by two part-time retirees which will be a lot better than an empty position for you. Start configuring your job listings to indicate that you welcome second-career applicants and talk to your hiring managers and recruiters about who you’re looking for. To make your workplace more appealing, don’t forget to include helpful things like handicap parking, handrails, ramps, and elevators.
Most retirees are still experts in their field, even if they can’t perform the physical aspects of the job anymore. For desk work, organization, leadership, and oversight, open your doors to the retirees seeking interest and engagement with a second career.
The Network Editorial Team
