Government Technology - January 2009 - (Page 30)

Eric Toder develops strategies with colleagues at the Urban Institute on ways employers can keep older workers coming back to work every day. He’s researched and written numerous reports about retirement, taxes and Social Security. Golden Years and Resources Although CIOs are in hot pursuit of younger applicants, most of them aren’t disregarding the value of older, more experienced workers. It’s quite common for government to lure back retirees as consultants or part-time employees. California, for example, devised a way for retirees to return to employment. In September 2006, California unveiled its Boomerang program, an online database that allows retirees to register for part-time work and input their interests and skills. On the back end, The federal government already does this, indirectly, through the Social Security system — the longer people wait to retire, the better the benefits. However, state governments seem less receptive. In the 2007 NASCIO survey, 93.3 percent of respondents said they didn’t offer incentives to employees to postpone retirement. Many cities and counties may be similarly hesitant because of the lukewarm economic climate. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, state and local governments are considering cuts in retiree pension and retirees because they’re already drawing benefits, so all you have to give them is straight salary.” Andrew Armani, director, California eServices Office “You don’t really have to pay benefits to state agencies can search through the registrant data to see who the best fits are for open positions. Andrew Armani, director of California’s eServices office, which helps develop state e-government solutions, said Boomerang had 2,586 retired state annuitants listed as of July 31, 2008. “We’ve seen departments hiring from that list, and I’ve had a lot of great feedback about it because it’s really easy,” Armani said. “You have got information for retirees right there, and the discipline that they’re either looking for or they’re expert in, and it’s been very successful.” Boomerang is also a cost-effective method of acquiring talent. “You don’t really have to pay benefits to retirees because they’re already drawing benefits, so all you have to give them is straight salary,” he said. Another approach may be to create incentives for older workers to delay retirement. JAN_09 benefits programs between 2006 and 2016. If this happens, there will likely be fewer people competing for public-sector positions. On the other hand, reduced benefits and pensions in a bearish economy — or simply the need to survive in such an economy — could motivate older workers to delay retirement. “A lot of companies have dropped retiree health programs; they don’t exist anymore. So in order to get health benefits, at least until you’re 65 and eligible for Medicare, you have to keep working,” said Eric Toder, senior fellow of the Retirement Policy Program at the Urban Institute. The program studies economic and demographic trends in older Americans. “Jobs have fewer physical demands these days, so you have less people in the kind of manufacturing, construction work that you physically can’t do if you get older. The population is healthier and is expecting to live longer, and so they’ll need to support themselves longer.” Toder is one of many who are finding ways to motivate older workers to stay in the office. He participated in a roundtable discussion on worker retention sponsored by the Urban Institute; the institute published the talking points in a 2008 document titled Capitalizing on the Economic Value of Older Adults’ Work. The ways to retain older workers included part-time employment, flexible work schedules that vary over the workday or workweek, job sharing, telecommuting, “snowbird” programs that let employees work in different locations seasonally, altering workplaces to make them less physically demanding, and rehiring retirees for short-term projects. To some CIOs, these options aren’t new ideas. “Rehiring part-time people, we do quite a bit of that,” Ross said. “We’re very open to that. They retire from the state and they can’t work over 1,000 hours a year or it will screw up their retirement that they’ve already got coming. So then if we keep them less than 1,000 hours a year, then they can come back and get the state health insurance, which is a bargain.” Wing rehires retirees because she needs them to work on mission-critical systems that only the most experienced employees can handle. “Our property system — some of our staff are retiring and it’s going to take another two or three years until that system’s completed, so we have reached out to them saying, ‘Can you come back and help us during the busy business cycle?’” she said. It seems that though employers will have to fill vacant positions with younger employees, some older workers will still be available to make the transition easier. In fact, there’s speculation that the nature of how people relate to the workplace throughout their lifetimes might change. “As the age composition of the work force changes, it’s going to affect the nature of the workplace as well,” Toder said. “Maybe we’ll get more to a society where the norm is, instead of really working like gangbusters until you’re 60 and then stopping, it’s more of a mode that mixes work and other things throughout your working life.” 20 http://www.govtech.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Government Technology - January 2009

Government Technology - January 2009 Contents Point of View On the Scene Big Picture Four Questions for... Stemming the Retirement Tide Getting the Picture Fact of Matter Money Trail Rays the Roof Trick or Tweet? The Modern Way to Vote Products signal:noise

Government Technology - January 2009

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