KEY POINTS:
Fifty nine-year-old Yvonne Codde has no intention of retiring - again - in the near future. She enjoys the job too much.
Back in April, after 42 years in the workforce, she actually did retire. There were the speeches, the flowers, the gifts. Then, after 2 1/2 months of holiday, travelling in Italy and catching up with family, Codde found herself back at the bank again.
"When I left, the people at Westpac said they didn't want to lose all the knowledge across the wide range of the banking areas I'd built up. I'd been in marketing, corporate affairs as well," says the former manager, private banking. But she didn't expect to be offered a year-long contract before she even got into retirement.
Within weeks of arriving home she was back at Westpac as an adviser in private banking, working nine days a fortnight - and enjoying it.
"Is it less stressful," she muses? "It's as stressful as you want it to be. I've got a different attitude at this age."
She has also negotiated herself roughly the same pay as when she "retired".
"As a woman you've got to value yourself, back your experience and knowledge. I've still got the skills, it's the same sort of work, so it's good."
Codde is one of an ever-increasing slice of older people remaining in the workforce. Now she talks about weaving more travel between consulting or managing projects after this stint.
Fifteen years ago she may not have had the choice. Many companies had compulsory retirement policies. Older workers were considered dead wood, too set in their ways, unable to grasp new technology. A 50-plus executive who had been made redundant, had little hope of finding another job. As a former manager explains it, the scenario was always the same: the head hunter would be wildly enthusiastic about his CV. He would get into the last two or three candidates. And then he would get the call: "Sorry, but you're overqualified for the job. Too experienced. The client thought you could get bored."
Now, as the first of the baby boomers are retiring, with the rest due to follow in increasing numbers some corporates are scrabbling to retain or employ older, more experienced workers.
Why? Disenchantment with so-called Generation Y (the youngsters who want to be head of department within a year, earn big money and think staying in a role for three years is living death); a realisation that people with manufacturing and management skills were hollowed out during the '90s, leaving a knowledge gap; and demand. "The workforce is getting tighter and tighter," says The Warehouse HR manager, Paul Walsh who at 53 is approaching the older group (which The Warehouse considers starts at 55-plus). "People are changing jobs much more frequently and the 55-plus group provide continuity and stability. They're getting older but are much more healthy and have different expectations about life than people did in the past."
One of those expectations is a rewarding, stimulating job - often part time. "Some want to work in less-stressful, demanding roles. This generation absolutely expect to be respected," says Walsh. "Ethics are more important; the type of people they work with is more important - and they add value in a particular way, adding stability and continuity."
Ian Taylor, a director of Sheffield recruiting firm, points out that the recession of 1987 signalled the end of the idea youth and energy were the saviour of the universe. "It signalled a warning that putting all your faith in aggression, energy and optimism was a danger," he says. "If you didn't add the balance of maturity, judgment and wisdom - you were left bereft."
Today their top clients in local government, the academic sector and corporates are looking for people who have been through bad times as well as good. "The right candidate knows what can go wrong because he's been through it." He talks about older workers being wooed out of retirement and naming their own price. "It's a great bargaining position."
Unlike the US, where niche websites such at RetireeWorkforce.com and Dinosaurexchange.com target what they call seniors, New Zealand human rights legislation forbids outright age targeting. Nor have local recruitment companies, who try to specialise in older workers, been successful in Auckland. Fred Young, who started Silverworks recruitment agency with a bang in 2004, has closed for good. Despite being inundated by hundreds of oldsters, from scientists to storemen, he "couldn't make money out of it". Winz refused to help. "In the end I gave up."
A similar Christchurch-based agency, Grey Skills Employment, is thriving after nine years, but mainly in the South Island. Repeated efforts to find a manager for the Auckland branch have failed.
"The market has changed enormously over the past decade," says founder/manager Neal Sales. "Back in the mid-'90s I was pushing uphill. Now the phones are going with employers looking for mature, reliable, staff. We have 59 jobs on the books, for accountants, motor mechanics, plumbers, a whiteware salesperson."
The trouble is, he doesn't have the job-seekers to match. "I doubt if we'll fill 10! We live with a rather spoiled younger generation," he says. "They work Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday then get paid on Thursday so they don't come back to work on Thursday or Friday but party for four days. We're looking for more mature people."
Pip Ball, who works in Performance and Culture at the BNZ, reports "an absolute sea change," a definite shift in perception around the value of the older worker. "Seventy is the new 60, 50 is the new 40," she says. The BNZ focus is on "capturing" the institutional knowledge of older workers. It now attracts and retains them by offering flexible working conditions, "graduated retirement" (going from five days to four and then three days a week) and is looking at how to connect younger workers with older ones, and so pass on knowledge that is in danger of being lost forever.
At Westpac, diversity manager, Colleen Bermingham-Brown talks about the 70-year-old trainer who works in the branches one day a week and teaches new tellers "the old way, the thorough way. How to set out their workstations, arrange their money with the Queen facing up."
At Pumpkin Patch, Carina Hull, manager of HR and Development, can't get enough of older workers. "They're 100 per cent committed, get on with pregnant mums, enjoy working part time and in terms of absenteeism - we just don't experience those same issues."
Pumpkin Patch employs 3200 people in 16 countries, 93 per cent female. In New Zealand around 10 per cent are older (this rises to 15-18 per cent globally) and many of those work part time.
"Older workers are a previously untapped resource," says Hull. "We look at people as individuals and recognise the skills they can bring and we like to help all our people reach their full potential."
In New Zealand we have one of the highest percentages of working 50-64 year-olds in the OECD. Government statistics show the slice of older workers grew by nearly 6 per cent over the past year. One in six workers is 55.
Yet changes in attitude are frustratingly slow. Smart companies are switching on to older workers, but many are still trapped in old-fashioned thinking. Newsweek reports that a 25-nation survey by international recruitment agency Manpower earlier this year, found fewer than a quarter of business had strategies in place to retain older workers.
As Carina Hull says, this is wasteful. "Employers need to look at these workers as individuals and see where their talents might be employed within the business - that's what it's all about. I don't think men are any less flexible - but are we as employers, providing them with the opportunities to succeed?"
DOING IT FOR THEMSELVES
Many older, highly qualified workers, especially former managers who were made redundant in the 1990s have found it hard to re-enter the workforce. Some adapted to the new environment and were snatched up by new companies, even when they tried to retire. Some moved to new sectors. The more entrepreneurial saw the gaps and started their own businesses. Scott Yates opened Plankwall when he was in his late 50s. Twelve years later the company, which manufactures and exports fibreboard panels, employs 12 people (three of them over 65) and is going great guns. "We built a machine which people said wouldn't work. Now we can do four panels of MDF [medium density fibreboard] a minute - four times faster than a conventional machine - and we're shipping to Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Melbourne..."
One of the interesting things about Yates' company is that half his employees are between 19 and 23 and the rest over 45 due to what the Manufacturers and Exporters Association calls a "hollowing out" of the skill-base during the late 1980s and 1990s.
"We employ older people who previously qualified in specialist engineering and trades. We discuss what we want to achieve and with their skills they can bring my wishes to reality. They enjoy the challenge as much as anything," says Yates, who still skis, and bikes most mornings at 5.30 before headingto work, "We've risen from the ashes. I find it mentally stimulating to come into the office."
