Firms tapping skills of the recently retired

Retirees also eager to retain ties with the familiar working world

Call them boomerang retirees: people who exit gracefully after their career at a company, then return shortly afterwards to work there part-time.
 
More and more companies are establishing formal programmes to facilitate this, for reasons that benefit both the employer and the retiree. Leaving a satisfying job cold-turkey for a life of leisure can be an abrupt jolt to people accustomed to feeling purposeful, earning money and enjoying time with their colleagues. From the corporate perspective, it is useful to have experienced hands who can train younger people, pass along institutional wisdom and work with fewer strings attached.
 

“People in the US define themselves by their work, and they like their co-workers,” said Roselyn Feinsod, senior partner in the retirement practice at the human resources firm Aon Hewitt, the human resources consultancy. Thus, unlike many retirees from past generations, people from both the blue-collar and white-collar sectors are more eager to retain ties to the familiar working world that they enjoyed (and sometimes loathed).
 

Mark Keefe, who spent his career as a human resources manager at Overlook Medical Center in Summit, New Jersey, retired in 2014, when he was 66. Since his wife still worked, he took on household chores and cooked the evening meals. “It was really a time to relax,” he said.

 
But the company that owns Overlook, Atlantic Health Systems of Morristown, New Jersey, is among the growing ranks of employers that sponsor a formal programme to invite retirees back into the workforce, for no more than 1,000 hours a year. The company’s Alumni Club — formerly known as the 1,000 Hour Club — was established in 2006, and about 300 Atlantic Health retirees are currently on the company’s payroll in various capacities. “They’re engaged employees; they’re productive,” said Lesley Meyer, Atlantic Systems’ manager of corporate human resources. “They’re a stable talent pool.”
Starting in March of 2015, Keefe began putting on a suit and tie and returning to work every Wednesday. He taps his human resources experience to counsel employees who are nearing retirement about benefit packages.

 
The soon-to-be-retired always have plenty of questions, and Keefe enjoys offering them information and guidance, including insights gleaned from his own experience. “I look at it this way: I have a six-day weekend,” he said. “I love it.”
 
Most boomerang retirees return to work after an informal negotiation with a former boss. Programmes like the one at Atlantic Systems are still relatively rare — for instance, about eight per cent of the 463 companies surveyed by the Society for Human Resource Management in 2015 had one — but they are on the rise.
 
They are also tricky to run: Establishing a boomerang retiree programme involves a substantial commitment of resources, including systems for navigating complex labour market rules and pension law. Most returning retirees must wait several months before they can come back, and are often limited to that 1,000 hours a year. Companies are increasingly turning to outside staffing firms to manage the nuts and bolts.

  © New York Times News Service