I spoke with some experts on the subject: Neil Costa, the Fast Company columnist who coined the term flexible tires; Cheryl Evans, director of the Milken Institute and co-author of the paper “Shifting the Retirement Paradigm”; Jack Twarnecki, an employee benefits specialist and author of a Benefits Quarterly article titled “Going for the Wrong Goal: What's Holding Employers Back When It Comes to Older Workers?”
Benefits of flexible tires
Costa, who is CEO of a digital recruitment marketing agency, says a flexible working program can be tempting for both employers and older workers. He came up with the term when he and some colleagues were talking about how to make jobs at their 50-person company more rewarding for workers approaching retirement. One of these workers has now started the flexible framing process, while another is in the process of starting one.
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“When we think about natural retirement, it's an on/off switch, and it's someone leaving and riding off into the sunset,” Costa told me. “We're trying to define a new employment situation where you're still an employee and you can still take advantage of benefits and still have a more intimate relationship with the company.”
For employees, flexibility will allow them to continue working part-time, perhaps on one of their employer's major initiatives or as mentors – perhaps remotely. For companies (or nonprofits or government agencies), the benefit will be that they can retain their experienced workers longer, “alleviating catastrophic knowledge gaps and empowering a younger generation of workers,” Costa wrote.
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A paradigm shift for retirement
“A lot of people won't necessarily retire in the traditional sense of retirement,” said the Milken Institute's Evans. “We feel like the idea of retirement is changing. This is kind of a paradigm shift.
With flexible work, an employee's pay and benefits — health insurance, 401(k) and the like — continue on a prorated basis, depending on the number of hours or days the person works.
“If someone works 40% of the time, we're willing to cover 40% of their benefits, but they can still be employed,” Costa said of his company.
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Flexibility versus phased retirement
The idea of flexible frameworks may seem similar to phased retirement, but there are differences.
For one thing, the small number of employers who currently offer phased retirement — where employees gradually move from full-time work to working fewer hours — typically do so only on an ad hoc basis, offering that option to a select number of older workers who have the gumption. To ask for it.
The latest Key Financial Well-Being Index survey found that only 16% of U.S. companies work with employees on a regular basis to create a phased retirement plan. However, 52% of employees said they want to gradually reduce the amount of time they spend working in their field and eventually stop working.
Likewise, about half of older workers in a survey by the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies said they expect to transition into retirement by gradually reducing their work hours or taking on less demanding jobs.
Unlike phased retirement, flexible working will be open to all of an employer's older workers, allowing those who wish to pursue this option to start a conversation with their bosses and come to arrangements that suit both sides.
Will employers offer flexibility?
I can see why many older workers would like flexible frames. But the big question is: will employers accept this?
HR benefits consultant Twarnicki, a proponent of what he calls “flexible, cost-effective, age-neutral staffing,” doubts that many employers will offer the kind of arrangements he and Costa prefer.
He said he's not stubborn, he's just a realist.
“HR departments, with legal advice and the like, have already decided what's optimal. And that's what they have today,” Twarnicki said. “Until something disrupts that, it's hard for me to see how they're going to change the status quo.”
But, he wondered, “Wouldn't it be more interesting, and perhaps produce a better outcome, if the goals and objectives of workers and employers intersect and coincide?”
Which employers might try first
Certain types of employers may be more likely to consider adapting in order to meet older workers where they want to be.
“I think the smaller the employer, the greater your chances of people identifying your individual performance and understanding the things that will keep you employed,” Twarnecki said.
Costa predicts that flexible work programs will first attract employers with workers who are engineers, accountants and creative services — “technical types of roles you can do from anywhere.”
By contrast, jobs like sales may be more difficult, because for those roles, someone will still need to manage customers, Costa says.
Push for change
Although his flexible idea is new, Costa is optimistic.
“There's nothing too scary for employers about this, and we're looking at a massive brain drain from Boomers and Generation X who are approaching retirement,” he said. “I think flexibility is a great opportunity to retain people and bring in talent from competitors who don't offer it.”
The World Economic Forum agrees.
In its January 2024 in-depth report on the principles of the longevity economy, the organization said: “Companies need to evolve their career designs to achieve flexibility to provide older individuals who want to continue working with the ability to remain in their jobs for longer.”
The report noted that one of the companies doing this is insurance company Swiss Re, whose Flex+ program allows older workers to flexibly reduce their working time before entering “normal retirement.”
In an article by Janine Vanderburgh, a LinkedIn consultant and writer focused on ageism, influencers in the field of older workers offered their predictions for 2024. Katherine Collinson, CEO and president of the Transamerica Institute, said she believes “employers will embrace “Increasingly there are flexible retirement options to make things go more smoothly.” shifts for themselves and their retired employees.
Since publishing his Fast Company article, Costa has received a lot of positive feedback from his professional and personal networks. “People love the concept,” he added.
The Milken Institute, which often helps its older workers move into consulting roles, hopes more employers will embrace ideas such as flexibility.
“We want employers to realize that our population is aging and that people should not be quietly pushed out of the workforce,” Evans said. “We really encourage employers to think about how they can use people differently and to recognize and value that [workers] Bring into the workforce.”
She added that it was unfortunate that these days “the responsibility seems to fall on individuals.”
What do you think of flexible tires? Did your employer offer anything like this? Let us know in the comments.
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