A Charity’s Mature Vision

A social-service group tailors its appeal to older employees

When the YMCA of Greater Rochester made a deal to run a wellness program for older people who are

eligible for the federal government’s Medicare program, it quickly gained 8,000 members and a major source of continuing revenue. But as the new members started showing up at the weight and aerobic machines, the Y also realized that its employees, who were mostly in their 20s, were not necessarily prepared for the changes that were happening at the organization.

The new members, many of whom came to a fitness center for the first time in their lives, were unfamiliar with the equipment and unwilling to ask questions of the muscular young people in the weight room.

“We were afraid somebody was going to fall off the treadmill,” says Mary Kay Walrath, the Y’s vice president of communications.

What’s more, she says, one of the goals of YMCA affiliates nationwide is to ensure that their work forces reflect the demographics of their memberships.

‘Rain, Sleet, Snow, or Hail’

The Rochester organization started making a major push three years ago to recruit older workers, and today a full 20 percent of the charity’s 2,100 workers are older than 50. Its oldest employee is an 89-year-old fitness instructor.

Hiring people who were older than the typical Y worker offered many advantages, says Fernán R. Cepero, the Rochester Y’s vice president for human resources. For one thing, he says, older people always show up for work, unlike some of his younger employees.

“It’s almost like what they used to say about the mailman,” says Mr. Cepero. “Rain, sleet, snow, or hail, they’re here.”

In addition, he says, the older employees are more likely to complete assignments and possess speaking and writing skills that younger people sometimes lack. Older workers are also eager to learn new skills and are savvy about new technology, he says.

Not only is the fitness organization happy with its older employees, but the feeling appears to be mutual. The turnover rate among workers who are 50 or older is less than 2 percent, compared with 20 percent overall, Mr. Cepero says. The Rochester Y has been so successful at hiring and keeping older employees that last year it was named one of the best employers for workers older than age 50 by the AARP, an advocacy group in Washington.

Attracting Boomers

The Rochester Y is one of a growing number of organizations that are seeking to insure themselves against a predicted labor shortage by learning now how to attract older workers who might be able to fill the expected shortfall. Some economists forecast a shortage of 35 million workers by 2030, largely caused by the retirement of some of the nation’s 77 million baby boomers, a majority of whom are now 50 or older.

Charities may be in a good position to recruit some of the boomers leaving jobs in business, some experts say. Nearly two-thirds of baby boomers say they want to work for a nonprofit organization or the government after they retire, according to a 2005 survey by the MetLife Foundation and Civic Ventures, a nonprofit think tank. “These boomers represent a vast pool of knowledge and experience,” says Patrick Cullinane, director of a program at the American Society on Aging that encourages older people to get involved in civic activities.

To get those older workers, though, charities will have to learn what incentives they must offer them.

“You’re looking at a generation that has a desire to work, but not necessarily for money,” says Tim L. Wollerman, manager of work-force resources at the AARP. “They want to work in a different capacity or nontraditional hours. They want a stronger work-life balance.”

Perks for Employees

The incentives offered by the Rochester Y are typical of those offered by many organizations that are popular sources of work for the elderly, Mr. Wollerman says. Among them:

• Alternatives to the traditional 9-to-5 workday, such as flexible schedules and job sharing. One YMCA employee whose husband had a stroke was permitted to switch temporarily to a part-time schedule, and then went back to working full time after his recovery.
• A policy that prohibits managers from giving employees particular types of jobs based on their age.
• A benefits package that includes partially paid health insurance and a 401(k) retirement plan. Both full- and part-time workers are eligible to receive such benefits.
• Free training so they can upgrade their skills to take on new duties.
• Free use of the Y facility and its programs.

Accommodating Retirees

The Rochester Y has also benefited from its efforts to stay in touch with people who have retired from the organization, as some of those people have returned to work at the organization in a different capacity. In other cases, employees who are eligible to retire have kept working because the Y let them gradually cut back on their hours.

One of the best ways an organization can recruit older workers, Mr. Wollerman says, is to encourage its employees to work past retirement age.

“What’s great about that is that you have a group of people that already have experience working with organizations,” he says. “Instead of bringing in a consultant, you can bring in someone who’s already done the job for 10 or 15 years but doesn’t want to do the work full time in retirement.”

Deanne C. Wooden, 65, is now working part time at the Rochester Y after retiring from her full-time job at the organization in 2004. Her job has changed — she now secures money for Camp Cory, a year-round residential camp, instead of managing it — but she is on hand to help answer questions for the new manager. She works Tuesdays, Thursdays, and some Wednesdays, which leaves her “nice long weekends” to go camping with her husband every week in a travel trailer they own. “We waited all these years to be able to do that,” she says.

Mr. Cepero says the Rochester Y was lucky because it didn’t have to make many changes to appeal to older workers. Many of its policies already appealed to people older than 50, such as flexible schedules and job sharing. Of its 2,100 employees, he says, only 250 have traditional full-time jobs.

Calm and Maturity

The charity, says Mr. Cepero, found some of its employees through the Bridge Employment Services Group, a program run by a Rochester charity that helps people who are 50 and older find employment. The Y also participated in Veterans Administration job fairs and hired an employment agency that recruits older workers.

When local charities call for advice about how to hire older workers, Mr. Cepero says, “I ask them, what does your marketing look like? Does it show older people?”

He also advises them to collaborate with local organizations that work with the elderly to create customized job fairs designed to draw older employment seekers, which he deems a more effective recruitment tool than broad-based job fairs.

In many cases, retired workers approached the Y on their own, attracted by an environment where they are valued as highly as the younger employees.

Ethel M. Adell, 56, used to work for another nonprofit group where she ran a girls’ summer camp, but she says she couldn’t persuade the organization to give her a full-time job. “They considered me an older worker who was not in a career-track position,” she says. “At the Y, they never gave a thought to my age.”

Soothing an 18-month-old who has climbed into her lap in the Y’s day-care center, Ms. Adell, now a certified Early Head Start teacher of infants, says she appreciates the training she has received and the fact that she can apply not only her work skills but also her maturity to the job. Parents listen to her and accept advice they might reject if it came from a younger person, she says.

“I’m calm when it comes to dealing with situations, parents, or children,” she says. “It comes from having children of my own.”

Seeking a Challenge

Unlike Ms. Adell, many other baby boomers are seeking part-time work — and many of them are only willing to take jobs at organizations that will make good use of their professional skills. However, finding those kind of jobs can be challenging. Most organizations relegate their part-time employees to entry-level or nonmanagerial work.

Bill H. Hearne was having a tough time persuading an organization to give him a management job that allowed him to work fewer hours.

Mr. Hearne, who retired two years ago from an executive job at Eastman Kodak, thought at first of consulting, but rejected the idea of more travel and 60-hour workweeks.

Instead, the 59-year-old decided he wanted to help run a fitness program.

“I’ve always been active,” says Mr. Hearne, whose first leisure pursuit after retirement was climbing Mount Kilimanjaro.

He applied for a job at one gym as a “wellness coordinator,” organizing the fitness programs and overseeing the gym equipment and staff members who teach there, and even lined up someone else to share the job with him. But Mr. Hearne and his job-share candidate lost out to someone who was willing to work full time.

Then Mr. Hearne heard that the Rochester Y was looking for a wellness coordinator, with the option of working a 20-hour week.

Now, he says, he uses his computer, supervisory, and communication skills to help people become healthier through exercise. And, he says, he still has time for his family.

Doug Long, the Y’s health and fitness director, is pleased with Mr. Hearne and other older workers he has hired.

“They bring a broader perspective to the Y,” he says, speaking between breaths as he rides an exercise bike on his lunch break. Their life experiences make them better communicators and better at defusing confrontation, he says. “They’re more effective at dealing with 14- to 16-year-olds.”

Not all people who retire can be lured back to work simply by an offer of flexibility, says Mr. Wollerman of the AARP.

In those cases, an organization can attract older workers by offering extra benefits that don’t cost much but are a big help to older people, such as child care for an employee’s grandchildren, free use of computers or facilities, or other perks.

The extras offered by the YMCA appealed to Michael Riley, 59, who retired four years ago as a supervisor of the state’s juvenile programs. His job was pretty intense, and the last thing he wanted was a stressful second career. Now, he’s a lifeguard at the Y.

“The most difficult part of this job is staying awake,” he says.

Mr. Riley says that when he took the job at the Y about six months after retirement, the free membership the Y gives its employees was an incentive. (A single membership costs $678 a year.) “Not having that extra hit a month is nice,” he says. And he likes staying connected to other people in Rochester, especially at a place where he has been swimming for more than a decade.

Mr. Riley wasn’t looking for work, and says he probably would never have taken a job at the Y if the charity had not reached out to its membership when it decided to make a push to recruit older workers. There was really only one reason he took the job, he says: “They asked me.”