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Recognizing seniors' desire to combine work, retirement
By Maggie Jackson, Globe Correspondent, 2/15/04
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Globe Photo/Steve Miller
"I still enjoy what I do," says Toni Escott, 60.
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Toni Escott, 60, works 90 percent of a full-time actuarial job for The Hartford Financial Services Group in Hartford and may cut her schedule further next year. ''I still enjoy what I do,'' says Escott, who spends her extra days off with grandchildren. ''I like the people I work with. I wasn't ready to give all that up.''
Knitting, golf, and a rocking chair - that's not how older workers spell ''retirement'' anymore. Many yearn to combine work and retirement, and a growing number of companies are responding by offering ''phased retirement,'' which allows workers to scale back for two or three years before leaving the payroll. Thirteen percent of companies offer such an option, and another 13 percent plan to do so, according to a 2003 survey by the Society for Human Resource Management.
The arrangement is rare and often informal, since obstacles from pension structures to managers' skepticism inhibit its wider adoption. But phased retirement is moving rapidly onto corporate radar screens as companies realize that seniors' desire to work can soften the looming double-whammy of a shrinking pool of younger workers and a flood of baby boomer retirements.
''It's an idea whose time is coming,'' says Sara Rix, AARP senior policy adviser. ''Retirement is changing. We are redefining retirement.''
At the Hartford, 225 employees over age 55 work reduced schedules. The seven-year-old benefit is being marketed more aggressively because staff over 55 has risen nearly 2 percent to 8.5 percent since 1999. ''We're in a risk-management business,'' says Ann de Raismes, group senior vice president of human resources. ''We could not afford a drain of that critical expertise.''
In the next few years, graying boomer workers, about 67 million strong, will start retiring in vast numbers, just as the supply of younger workers shrinks. The good news for companies: nearly 70 percent of workers ages 50 to 70 plan to work during retirement, or never retire, according to a 2003 AARP survey.
Money is a factor. But equally important is a desire to stay active and social, AARP research shows. ''They don't see themselves as getting the watch and leaving,'' says Barbara Peacock-Coady, manager of career planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which offers phased retirement to academic and support staff.
Phased retirement is most common in higher education, where workloads are flexible, and in industries such as health care, finance, and manufacturing, where talent is tight, according to human resource consultants Watson Wyatt Worldwide. But many barriers exist to wider adoption of the arrangement. For instance, it's illegal to work more than a few hours weekly and draw from a traditional pension plan. Such plans also base pensions on final years of service, making phasing-out punitive. Other impediments include a loss of benefits and employer skittishness about bestowing the benefit equitably.
The actual phase-out can prove tricky, too. In 2002, Dwight Rideout switched from his longtime job as dean of students of the University of Maine at Orono to senior associate dean of students, a part-time role. He's found it hard to step back. ''I feel that some things go by me, and I don't get a chance to say what I would have done,'' he admits.
Still, he relishes the chance to keep working. ''With the energy I have, I just didn't feel like 'this guy should be retired,''' he says. ''This gives me a chance to ease into it.''
Maggie Jackson's column about work and family life appears every other week. Reach her at .
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