Incentive - July 2008 - (Page 33)

Are Your Boomers Poised to Leave? That Won’t Fly Companies are developing incentives to return older workers to the nest BY CAROL PATTON Illustration: Mark Brewer hat is your company doing to retain older workers? Many employers aren’t doing anything. Based on results from a 2006 benefits survey conducted by the Society for Human Resource Management, only 15 percent of HR professionals stated that their organization had changed its benefits program to attract or retain older workers—those at least 50 years of age. But employers may be facing a time bomb. Skilled workers are in short supply. More baby boomers are approaching retirement. Jobs are getting harder and harder to fill. So some companies are getting creative. Instead of applying sexy recruiting tactics to woo younger workers, they’re developing interesting incentives that keep valued, older workers on the job, preventing their knowledge and skills from W walking out the front door. Consider Greenville Hospital System University Medical Center in Greenville, S.C. Roughly 36 percent of its 2,500 nurses are over the age of 50, says Suzanne White, vice president for patient care services and chief nursing officer at Greenville. In 2006, the medical center used a $75,000 grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to explore ways to retain its older, more experienced nurses. The funds were used to purchase safety equipment at one of Greenville’s community hospitals. White explains that the equipment helps nurses lift and transfer patients and, equally important, avoid muscular skeletal injuries. Since then, she says work-related injuries dropped by 84 percent while the number of sick days plunged to zero. But among the most important outcomes was that older nurses were no longer quitting because of the physical demands of their job. “We started thinking about the future and the need for us to retain nurses longer and hold on to that intelligence,” says White, adding that the average age of Greenville’s nurses is 44. “We made a point that when we were thinking about renovation and construction, we would [think] about the aging worker.” So far, physical accommodations have proven to be the biggest retention factors. For example, instead of a central nursing station on each floor, Greenville created mini care stations for every four rooms so nurses would not have to walk back and forth down long corridors. Nurses can sit at the station and see their patients through large glass windows. Likewise, supply cabinets were placed incentivemag.com | July 2008 | Incentive | 33 http://incentivemag.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Incentive - July 2008

Incentive - July 2008 Contents Editor’s Note: Accentuate the Positive In The News Cover Story: Three Profiles in Good Corporate Citizenship Case Study Incentive Interview Senior Secrets To Thine Own Self be True Incentive Primer Motivation@Work Travel News: Where To Go and What To Do Take the Spa Home Not the Only Game in Town Here and Now Writing and Desktop Gifts Watches and Clocks Gift Cards: Health and Wellness Incentives Good Health Is Not Its Own Incentive Advertiser Index Last Word

Incentive - July 2008

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