Savings, sacrifices and retirement security

News today from Alliance and Leicester (see below for link) that 42% of “Silver Savers” have made sacrifices to help ensure they enjoy a comfortable retirement. The mind boggles.

Are there boomers out there in the dead of night slaughtering unsuspecting beasts and drinking their still-warm blood, shrieking, wailing, ripping off cardigans and comfy slippers and hurling them into bright bonfire flames? Are we selling grandchildren to the slave trade, or fleeing our homes to live in tents?

Probably not. I guess just like everybody else we’re not going out to dinner quite so much (so maybe we are slaughtering unsuspecting beasts…?), taking a rain check on yet another holiday and deciding that a score of shoes is more than enough for anyone. Irksome. But not exactly sacrificial.

Oh – and apparently ”the majority of people (58%) over 50 do not harbour any illusions of an extravagant retirement lifestyle”. Hardly surprising if we haven’t got one now – and a bit scary that 42% do.

http://www.alliance-leicester-group.co.uk/html/media/non-indexed/release.aspx?txtCode=PR2511081

Fresh and crunchy

You only have to look at nature to understand the inevitability of ageing and how it manifests itself physically in most living things.

Open the fridge door and you may find elderly carrots and beans becoming limp and losing skin tone, tomatoes becoming wrinkled and slack, broccoli turning an unappetising shade of yellow. Overnight it seems (where does the time go?) once clear-skinned and perky bananas have become blotchy and soft, grapes and apples have sagged, and peaches have shrunk from their former pert peachiness.

Of course, it doesn’t necessarily detract from their quality. Some people like their bananas ripe, while avocadoes, melons and the undisputed king of the wrinklies – passion fruit – just aren’t at their best until they start to look past it.

But there’s got to be a dual advantage to making sure fruit and veg are consumed while they’re in their prime: maximum vitamins, minerals and goodness from fresh five a day, and avoiding a depressing daily reminder of what’s happening to us all.

Celebrating wisdom

One of the most uplifting experiences of the week was revelling in the sensory feast of words and images melded in award-winning photographer and film maker Andrew Zuckerman’s book, Wisdom. A record of the thoughts and ideas of over 50 of the world’s most prominent and celebrated over 65 year olds, it is illustrated with superb, honest and revealing images of these familiar and well-loved icons as they are today.

Inspired by Desmond Tutu’s words: “One of the greatest gifts we can give to another generation is our experience, our wisdom” this is a book to dip in to, ponder on, be inspired by. Buy one as a Christmas gift, or better still treat yourself and leave it on the coffee table for family and friends of all generations to read (available on Amazon – I’ve checked).

Scant regard is given these days to the role of wisdom and its value to society. We all need reminding of what it means and certainly we could do with more of it – let this set the standard.

See more at http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1848104,00.html or http://www.wisdombook.org/

Creating an age-diverse workforce

I have just read a piece by Leon Foster Hill on creating an age diverse workforce at B&Q on www.changeboard.com.

As part of an excellent overview of the B&Q experience, he wrote: “Our customer service also improved with the age of our workforce as there are clear business benefits to employing people who reflect our customer profile. Older workers have a great rapport with our customers and are able to give sound advice based on similar life experiences. Our training budget was also reduced as we found our older workers came with good experience and skills levels, along with a conscientious attitude and real enthusiasm for the job.”

The point to be taken is surely not that employers need to follow B&Q by specifically focusing on recruiting and retaining older workers, but that their qualities – customer rapport, sound advice, appropriate skills and experience, conscientious attitude, enthusiasm – are what every customer is seeking and every employee should be demonstrating. For improved levels of customer and employee satisfaction and engagement businesses should focus on identifying and fostering appropriate personal and brand values and the cultivation of individual and corporate wisdom – elements that can and should be appropriate to every employee regardless of their age, gender, race or ability.

Flexible retirement: what we say and what we do

Sometimes (in fact, very frequently) employers and HR professionals must really want to throw in the towel. After all, they often cop a bad press in terms of what they don’t or won’t do and scant recognition of what they do provide.

One such employer who currently must be howling with frustration is BT, an organization which has long been admired as a trail-blazer in terms of policies and practices designed to meet the needs of older workers.

News this week from TAEN’s (The Age and Employment Network’s) annual conference reports that despite BT responding to employee requests for greater flexibility in their jobs before retirement, less than 1% of those eligible have taken up the option of participating in their “Wind down” and “Step down” schemes.

In a report published in People Management (13 November), Dennis Gissing, head of people practices at BT speculates on the reasons: “It could be that the economy is a factor or that once people have had a certain level of authority they find the prospect of moving down can be quite difficult”.

Personally we wonder if it isn’t something to do with the rather off-putting “wind down” and “step down” terminology which doesn’t, to us at least, send out the right signals. Far more likely however is that it’s just down to that big gap – which has undermined many political and marketing campaigns in the past - between what people say they will do and what they actually do. Human nature is a wondrous thing.

Big baffling retirement hopes

New research released today by Baring Asset Management under the banner “Credit crunch hits pension hopes” reveals that due to the recent financial turbulence people now expect to retire a year later than they did last year – anticipating on average that they will continue to work until age 63.

Fair enough, these things happen – another year at the coalface. What seems astonishing however is that despite all the doom and gloom about pensions this only represents the future for some people. In fact, 13% expect to have retired before they reach 56 while 31% hope to give up work between 56 and 60. Only about 15% of people think they will have to work on beyond the traditional retirement age of 65.

So nearly half the population (44%) still realistically believe they will retire before 60. Can’t be bad. Not exactly working till they drop then.

The main thrust of the story was to point out that 35% of workers have so far failed to make any pension provision, including 7% of people who plan to retire before they are 50, with many relying on property to provide them with a retirement income. Marino Valensise, chief investment officer at Barings, said: “These figures reveal a worrying trend of UK adults assuming that they will be in a position to retire without having made the necessary arrangements for funding that retirement”.

A worrying trend indeed, although I’d need greater clarity about who exactly these people are and which cloud they’re on before I’d worry too much. Far more worrying is the issue of what these people anticipate they are going to do with the rest of their lives. Retirement, of course, can be a glorious holiday for those with loads of money and interests, a happy partnership and a strong sense of who they are. For many, however, the reality of 30 or 40 years without much purpose in life can make retirement more of a life sentence than their job ever was.

For the “well-retired”, happiness seems to come from having thought through what their day-to-day life would add up to once the initial ecstasy of the retirement honeymoon has passed. They’ve planned for their mental sustenance as well as their physical needs – and for many, that means continuing some sort of work. However, getting a job post-retirement is undoubtedly going to be harder than ever in the economic climate of the next few years. The warning for premature retirees has surely got to be: “Think carefully about leaving the workplace. You may never get back”. For the relatively young, being on the scrapheap can be far more difficult to deal with than the realisation that the future isn’t going to be as financially rosy as they had hoped.

Good old Joan

Truly great news that that Dame Joan Bakewell has agreed to be a ‘Voice of Older People’. Minister for Women Harriet Harman yesterday announced her appointment to a role, which, according to a Cabinet Office press release, is “unique in Government”, with Dame Joan acting as an independent and informed advocate on issues which affect older people’s lives. She will be invited to give her views on key policy developments and the forthcoming Equality legislation, as well as, for example, speak at relevant Government events.

Dame Joan will help raise the profile of age equality issues and encourage public debate, particularly as the Equality Bill progresses through Parliament and as work towards implementing a ban on harmful age discrimination is taken forward. She will be independent and free to express her views as a Voice of Older People. and will not be a Government spokesperson.

Having seen her in action presenting her views on ageing and related issues, we think the choice is superb and look forward to the emergence of some vibrant and intelligent commentary. Only one thing grates. Joan herself is a splendid 75 which in itself is not a problem. But yet again “ageing” is being spoken of as a blanket term to cover everyone from “over 50″ until death – an age span of as much as 50 years.

Although relevant, the issues and interests of 50 to say 70 year olds – who by and large are active and still working (or capable of working) – are not the same as the truly elderly who are a generation above. Let’s hope Joan recognises this and makes it clear or she may risk turning off the in my prime/baby boomers whose support could make a real difference to issues affecting the ”old”.

Who you are – not how old you are

Yesterday’s news coverage of Barack Obama’s victory led me to muse on two things. First, his win is heartening proof of how far the US has come over the past few decades in terms of breaking down racial barriers and accepting diversity. As an ecstatic follower proclaimed to the camera: “There is now only one race – the human race!”  This was a hugely heartening demonstration of how human beings can change both their attitudes and behaviour, but it caused me to wonder how long it will take, if ever, for similar barriers against age to disappear.

My second thought was related to one of the key issues of the election campaign – age. How is it that someone as old as John McCain – who was put forward on a ticket of age-related experience and knowledge – can be considered a suitable candidate to run one of the most powerful countries in the world when at 72 he would have been on the scrapheap in terms of just about any other job?  Whether or not you support his politics or even like the man personally he made a hugely energetic impression and gave no indication of age-related weakness compared to his much younger rival. Proof surely that people should be judged by who they are not the age they are (a point emphasized by an interview with Obama supporter, 106 year old Ann Nixon Cooper from Atlanta, who could have given them both a run for their money).

Statistics to die for

Last Wednesday, October 29^th, I attended a Joint Conference organised by the International Longevity Centre ( ILC-UK) and the Actuarial Profession entitled “Choosing Population Projections for Public Policy”. Not everybody’s idea of fun you might think but, nevertheless, it’s amazing just how much impact a debate like this has, or more correctly should have, on the well-being of every single one of us.

By now we should all be aware that people are living longer, people are going to have to work longer and that the country is going to have a lot of difficulty in finding the resources, financial and otherwise, to cope with the huge increase in the older population. The implications of all of this, therefore, permeate thinking in terms of retirement age, pensions, insurance, housing, health care, social care, transport and a host of other things.

Such thinking, and consequent planning, relies heavily on projections of population size, life expectancy and our state of health as we get older, not just a few years away but going deep into the future. The problem is that there is no consensus on what these figures are or even how they should be computed, nor who might be seen as tasked with turning these projections into a workable set of forecasts on which decisions can be made. And this provides an ideal opportunity to ignore the figures, to manipulate them or to be very selective in their use.

So what do the decision makers think of all of this – in particular those in government? The issues we are talking about need to be looked at in the context of answers that will see us through in the year 2030, in 2050, and well beyond. And the potential costs are huge – billions and billions. What it takes are people of statesmanlike vision and stature to guide us through. What we have is party political posturing which is only concerned with the short term and looking good at the next election.

And where better to lay the blame than on figures “we are not sure of”?

Discrimination against older workers

What appears to be a massive and unfair piece of potential discrimination seems to have slipped quietly under the wire last week. Recent CIPD/KPMG research released last Friday reported that older workers appear to be particularly at risk in terms of future anticipated redundancies.  One in five of the 721 UK organisations surveyed said they planned to take advantage of the rules which allow them to make workers aged over 65 redundant, without having to provide a business reason.

Okay, so legally they can – but what sort of businesses feel that it’s acceptable to make a whole category of workers redundant simply because of their age? Surely if it was race, gender or even younger age there would be a national outcry?  And, it begs the question of why these older workers are being employed by these organizations in the first place if their individual value is so negligible. It seems that the economic climate may be providing a convenient “excuse” for HR decisions that should be handled in another, better, way.

The only positive note is that this underlines just how important it is to abolish the mandatory retirement age so that people are judged according to their performance and contribution – as they should be at any age.

November Newsletter – Introduction

While everyone about us is deep in economic doom and gloom, here at in my prime we believe there are plenty of reasons to be cheerful. First of all, one of the great advantages of being this age is that we have, to a degree, seen it all before. Having lived through previous economic crises without witnessing universal melt-down we realise that it’s part of a natural cycle for these things to happen and that life will go on regardless of whatever crunches, squeezes or downturns occur. That’s not to understate the situation of people of any age who are now facing real hardship as a result, particularly those who have been made redundant, but for the majority of us it’s more a case, as the saying goes, that “into each life a little rain must fall”. Though sometimes, unfortunately, that rain doesn’t come at the best of times.

Although it seems a heavy price to pay we also take heart from the fact that as times get hard economic necessity is increasingly encouraging all of us “back to basics” in terms of such skills as cooking, sewing, walking, cycling and growing our own produce. We are starting to take green issues much more seriously too now that saving energy and preventing waste are necessities rather than “nice to haves”.

Relatively, we have much to be thankful for: as in my primers we no longer have to face the emotional angst and financial challenges of the young and are fortunate to be much better placed than the elderly, many of whom must face economic difficulties on what is often a very tight budget with very few options in terms of how they might improve their situation or their ability to cope with it. As new research from Age Concern shows, not only is economic hardship a gruelling day-to-day reality but social isolation is equally prevalent with over a million elderly people reporting that they often or always feel lonely. Fortunately that’s something that each and every one of us can do something about quite easily if we only make the effort – both to offer companionship to the elderly and to work on building and maintaining our own social networks now to cushion us in old age.

Reasons to be cheerful? We could go on – but hopefully you get the point – although we’re all constantly assaulted by media hype about the sky falling in, it’s important to look at what’s positive about the situation; there really is plenty to be upbeat about. Not least the wonderful Cheri Lunghi flying the flag for older women on Strictly Come Dancing alongside the inimitable John Sargeant. With the two of them as wildly differing role models there is hope for us all…

Retirement planning in uncertain times

By all accounts retirement planning confidence is at an all-time low with about half (49%) of 30-50 year old “pre-retireds” feeling that they will not be able to enjoy a comfortable retirement. Unsurprisingly women are particularly concerned with almost half of them (49%) fearing they won’t be able to make sufficient provision for retirement compared to just over a third (36%) of  men (Source: Annual Retirement Confidence Index, Alliance Trust Savings).  A further report from GE Money maintains that only one in four adults are confident that their pension will see them through retirement, while analysis carried out by mortgage website, www.impartial.co.uk reveals that more than a million 65 year olds will still be paying mortgages when they retire.

If some or all of the above applies to you then the biggest comfort you might take is that however precarious your financial situation, you’re not alone. And with the scale of the problem so large, something, somehow will have to change. But of course, we don’t know what that might be or when it might happen, so the best strategy is to do what you can on an individual basis. Reading our new primer Retirement planning in uncertain times is a good place to start in terms of understanding the issues – particularly the fact that it’s never too late to do something to improve your future situation. And even if you’re one of the lucky ones with a great financial future – don’t ignore the issues and be too complacent. As they say, and as recent developments have graphically shown, the value of your investments can also go down.