Giving older consultants a bad name

The model of older workers moving into consultancy in later life in order to both meet their own career and life aspirations and to free up jobs within the talent pipeline in their previous workplace is a good one.

It’s unfortunate then that stories such as the one reported in the Daily Mail cast an unfavourable light on the practice. The article comments on examples of paying retired senior police officers what appear to be large sums for consultancy services.

Of course, daily consultancy rates taken out of context can appear high but fail to take into account the non-paid downtime that is a feature of most consultants’ working lives. In this case, this expenditure may still have added up to value for money for the services delivered compared to continuing to pay these individuals as employees, considering their experience.

However as Jonathan Isaby, of the TaxPayers’ Alliance commented: ‘Very serious questions need to be asked about how former police chiefs seemingly went through a revolving door that saw them retire, only then to be paid exorbitant amounts of money.

This doesn’t do the cause of most ordinary individuals doing reasonable and valuable amounts of consultancy work post-retirement any favours at all.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2120300/Police-chiefs-hire-retired-colleagues-1-100-day-act-consultants.html#ixzz1qDbfWSHZ