Change misconceptions about older workers to retain them

Incentives alone for firms to rehire workers past 65 will not work. We must tackle the presumption that older workers are slow, lack dexterity and are difficult to manage. (“Rewards to spur firms to rehire seniors in the offing”; Sept 30)

Allowing more of them to work flexible hours and giving full-time re-employed workers health checks and health advice are better than incentives to retain them. The key is to learn how to deal with an ageing workforce as our baby boomers get older and life expectancy rises.

If employers keep thinking that re-employed workers will impact negatively on their business, then it does not matter what help our Government gives.

Some older workers wish to keep working. They possess decades of formal and informal knowledge, which risk being lost as they retire, creating a skills shortage. They are repositories of a firm’s core values. Getting replacements with the same values is not easy.

Employers may believe that older workers are reluctant to embrace new technology. But if Mr Bill Gates and Steve Jobs could be innovators in their mid-50s, it shows that older workers need not be far behind younger ones.

It is also a mistaken belief that they lack the spirit for new ventures. Surely many Singaporeans aged 55 to 65 have launched businesses. And as older workers are more disciplined, a company can benefit from less absenteeism.

Firms must rethink the link between seniority and pay or power. This tradition makes it tough to adjust to an ageing workforce. Older workers should have the option of a lower salary and work adjustments in cases where seniority and pay do not matter to them.

Companies must also train their young high-flyers on how to manage their seniors and work with them.

Older workers could be treated as mentors, not superiors. It should be recognised that they may respond to different incentives, such as less interest in money and promotion, and more concern about flexibility.

Finally, retirement should be a process rather than a sudden event. One solution is to offer re-employed workers “bridge jobs” between full-time work and retirement.

This allows them to take unpaid leave without losing their benefits and fill in for absent colleagues, or when business demand surges.

Firms cannot change demographic trends, but they can change the way they cope with those trends by rethinking their practices and views of the ageing workforce. If they do, they could use re-employment to create the model of a modern workforce.