Video tutorial: Why it's time to retire the traditional approach to retirement
Speaking at the REBA Reward Leaders’ Forum 2018 she said that for some it will be for financial concerns and for others it’s different reasons.
She said the economy, health in retirement and retirement savings were worrying British people. And yet despite such concerns not enough was necessarily being done to combat such worries – such as addressing current eating habits, she said.
Read said the traditional three stage life pattern of education, work and retirement followed by parents and grandparents in the past simply didn’t work for generations today. As companies she said businesses need to think about options such as time out of the workforce, retraining and more flexible working options ahead of retirement to allow a new model to be created. “We need cultural change and we need personal acceptance that this model is broken and this new one needs to take over,” she said.
Colin Morris, DC analyst from Mercer, said that the impact of Brexit and changing demographics meant that the UK would face a workforce crisis – with it being harder to attract and retain staff in the coming years.
He said competition for staff would get far more aggressive and means that companies need to think more laterally about the benefits they offer. He cited outdoor brand Patagonia whose onsite childcare centre has contributed to a 100% retention rate for women who had had children at the business in the last five years. “That’s quite a radical solution but it’s an example of thinking about benefit solutions in a much broader context. What can your organisation do for your staff,” he said.
Morris said many businesses failed to concentrate much resources on shorter term financial problems of their staff, concentrating instead on longer term goals such as retirement. But he outlined the benefits of doing so – and how to make the change. “We believe that if you help your employees to fix those shorter term issues it will free them up to make better use of the tools and guidance you already have in place for the longer term,” he said.
This video was recorded at the REBA Reward Leaders’ Forum 2018 in London on 18 April 2018.
