Older people make valuable employees. And they often want—or need—to be in the workplace. Companies who hope to hire these workers must make sure their recruitment, training and benefit programs aren’t standing in the way.

The population of Americans 65 and older was 55.7 million in 2020, representing more than one in every six Americans, according to “2021 Profile of Older Americans,” a report prepared by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Many of these older people are strongly motivated to work—because they need to. One in five retirees say they are likely to return to work this year, according to a ResumeBuilder.com survey of retirees updated in January. When asked why they are considering unretiring, the most common answer given was to combat rising costs of living.

But older people often face resistance when they seek to remain in, or reenter, the workforce. One in five adults 50 or older say they have experienced discrimination since turning 40, according to an AARP report.

Learning New Skills

A charge sometimes leveled against older workers is that they are reluctant or unable to learn new skills. However, a recent Human Flourishing Lab-Harris Poll found that 78% of all respondents were interested in learning new technologies; that included 69% of Baby Boomers. More than 80% of each generation agreed that it is essential to keep an open mind about new technologies.

When older people reentering the workforce need to learn specific frontline retail-related skills, the National Retail Federation Foundation has an answer—its RISE Up training program.

Seated cashiers are the norm in European super- markets.

Both companies and individuals can purchase the program, which provides about 14 hours of online education, according to Adam Lukoskie, executive director of the foundation. Paper-based and hybrid training also is available and is offered in a number of languages.

Lukoskie pointed to the example of a recently named Partner of the Year—a retired person “who wanted to stay active and engaged and help people and earn extra money.” With the help of RISE Up, she transitioned to a self-checkout position after previously working in the mortgage industry.

Reasonable Accommodations

Another common stereotype of older workers is that they are less healthy and less productive than their younger counterparts. Becca Levy, author of “Breaking the Age Code: How Your Age Beliefs Determine How Long and Well You Live” disagrees: “Older workers take fewer days off from sickness, benefit from experience, have strong work ethics and are often innovative.”

But frontline retail work is physically demanding, and older employees sometimes do ask for accommodations.

Since the advent of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, allowing employees to be seated while performing their duties has been a commonly requested accommodation, according to Edward F. Harold, an attorney with Fisher Phillips in New Orleans.

Seated cashiers are the norm in European supermarkets, but rare in the United States.

“The accommodation generally arises in the situation of a cashier who may be behind a cash register for periods of time where they are not actually serving a customer. In such situations, courts have generally held that where a cashier has no need to stand, the employer must allow the opportunity for the employee to sit down,” according to Harold. California law requires employers to allow cashiers to be seated whenever they are not waiting on a customer as long as they have no other duties.

Attractive Benefits

What kind of benefits can companies offer to help recruit and retain older workers? According to “The Rise of Age-Friendly Jobs—And What Employers Need to Know,” an article from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, “Older people want jobs with greater autonomy (as measured by the ability to set their own schedule or work alone) as well as jobs that involve moderate physical activity or more sitting. They prioritize scheduling flexibility, even if it means less money. They also want shorter commutes or the option for remote work, less demanding cognitive and physical work, and reduced job stress.”

Scheduling flexibility is especially important, according to the Deloitte report “Redesigning Work for Our Aging Workforce,” because many workers also are acting as a caregiver for a loved one or are dealing with their own disability.

While many organizations recognize that flexibility is important to relieve the pressure of heath appointments and caregiving responsibility, “few have acted to set policies in place,” the report said.

Craig Copeland, director of health benefits research for the Employee Benefit Research Institute, stresses the importance of offering older workers flexibility when it comes to benefits.

The most sought-after benefits typically are those that are not covered by Medicare.

He advises employers to look carefully at the offerings in their benefit plan. While younger workers may be interested in options that help with student loan debt, tuition reimbursement and adoption assistance, those benefits aren’t likely to appeal to older workers.

The best approach usually is to offer some type of cafeteria plan, an employee benefit plan that allows staff to choose from a variety of pretax benefits. Popular options include health savings accounts (HSA), flexible spending accounts (FSA) and dependent care assistance plans (DCAP).

Letting each employee select benefits that most meet his or her needs “is a good selling point,” said Copeland. It’s important that whatever benefits are offered are communicated to potential employees.

For older workers, the most sought-after benefits typically are those that are not covered by Medicare, such as eye and dental benefits.

Group policies such as long-term care may be of interest, Copeland said. Employers may require employees to pay for such benefits, but having a group rate can help employees keep their costs lower.

Even if an employee still has access to private insurance, some medical practices don’t accept Medicare and the opportunity to continue to see familiar doctors can be considered a benefit, he added.

Finally, Copeland says, don’t forget about 401(k) plans. These can be a great incentive to older workers, because a key reason for working past age 65 is a lack of retirement savings.

Legislative Solutions

The Critical Labor Coalition (CLC), which includes NACS, works to address U.S. labor shortages by finding “legislative solutions that focus on the needs of different demographics,” said Executive Director Misty Chally.

The first group the coalition has looked at, according to Chally, is “the senior community. Now, as inflation increases, people are squeezed. It’s incentivizing them to return to work.”

The Critical Labor Coalition is partnering with AARP, the Coalition of Franchisee Associations and Golden State Opportunity to focus on effective tax-related strategies.

I’ve heard time and time again: The senior community is hard working.”

The groups propose expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), created in 1975 to support low-income workers, particularly those with children, by reducing the impact of federal payroll and income taxes. In 2018 credit was claimed on 1 in 6 federal income tax returns.

During Covid, expansions to the program included some older workers, but that expansion expired end of 2021.

A permanent expansion of EITC would incentivize retirees to enter or reenter the workforce. “If passed into law, this proposal would benefit over two million aged 64 and older,” according to the CLC.

It would benefit employers too, Chally said. “I’ve heard time and time again: The senior community is hard working. Employers are excited to get them back into the workforce.”

Aging Customers

The authors of the Deloitte paper offer one more incentive for employers to seek out and support older workers.

“The population is aging not only in workplaces, but also in the market generally—and those older individuals tend to have a lot of spending power,” they note. In the United States, “People aged 50+ spent more than $5.6 trillion in 2015—well above the $4.9 trillion spent by those under age 50, and accounting for nearly half of the country’s GDP for that year.”

“By maintaining representation of this customer base within the workforce, an organization can improve its ability to engage with and even create new products and services for older buyers,” they wrote. “As the saying goes, ‘nothing about us, without us;’ in other words, to serve a population well, it’s best to have members of that population involved.”