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Prime Time Awards 2006
Outstanding Employers of Older Workers
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The Butcher Shoppe
The Butcher Shoppe in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania is described by its owners as “a modern market with an old-fashioned commitment to service and quality.” Always a family-owned and operated business, the store opened 50 years ago as a small grocery and meat market. It has now expanded into a full-service meat, seafood, pastry and deli specialty food store. Management appreciates their mature workers and says they have found them to be their most dependable employees.
That belief in hiring older workers shows in their employee statistics: 53 of their 134 employees are over 65 years of age, eight are over 75, and the two oldest employees are 83. The majority of their workers are customer-service representatives, but five of the 11 supervisors at the shop are seniors. The Butcher Shoppe offers many part-time positions and managers are always willing to work individually with employees to find a work schedule to suit everyone’s needs. They also offer seasonal positions, which allow workers who leave in winter for warmer climates to return to jobs in the spring. When an employee is unable to do heavier work or specific jobs that may be too physically demanding, management works with that individual to find a more suitable position. They don’t want to lose trained, long-term staff.
The community has noticed how senior-friendly the atmosphere is at The Butcher Shoppe, which enhances its customer base. Shoppers like doing business with companies that show a commitment to the community and its employees. Owner Frank Keath says, “Customer service is the first priority of our company. Employing long-standing older workers brings to our business a mature atmosphere. The older worker understands what it means to be on the other side of the counter, something the consumer appreciates. Having older staff brings an intangible asset to our company, they naturally mentor and nurture the younger people around them.”
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Columbus Hospice
For more than 25 years Columbus Hospice has been providing compassionate care to persons of all ages who have a life-limiting illness. The main focus of the hospice program is to provide coordinated care and support to enable patients to spend their final days at home with family and friends. As anyone can imagine, providing this type of care requires a combination of skills and understanding, and that combination can often be found in older workers. “End-of-life care is such a special type of care at a fragile time in a person's life, and we passionately believe that the older workers bring life skills and experiences, maturity, and balance,” says Donna Morgan, director of patient care at Columbus Hospice.
Older workers are such an important component of their workforce that the hospice has an active program for recruiting older workers. Seniors are featured in television commercials and print ads, and face-to-face recruiting is often done by senior employees. More than 30% of their employees are more than 50 years old, and the hospice’s employee of the year this year is 70 years old. Older workers are in all kinds of jobs, including doctors, nurses, managers, nurses assistants, clerks and in a wide range of direct-patient care functions. To help attract older workers, the hospice offers the flexible schedules that many seniors desire.
Columbus Hospice values the skills and experience older workers bring to the workplace. Says Ms. Morgan, “The older workers on staff are exemplary role models for their younger peers. We attract employees who are looking for a gratifying type of work where they can fulfill life missions of helping others. Many of our employees are once retired and join our staff as a second career, seeking a change of pace that isn't easier but is definitely filled with blessings.”
When illness requires the special care needed from Columbus Hospice, older workers are key to providing that care.
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Allied Coordinated Trasnportation Services
Allied Coordinated Transportation Services (ACTS) is part of Pennsylvania’s Lawrence County Community Action Partnership, which is made up of agencies that seek to involve the community in assessing local needs and attacking the causes and conditions of poverty. ACTS includes the Senior Shared Ride Program, Shared Ride Program for Persons with Disabilities, and the Welfare to Work Program.
As a program whose clients are often seniors, it was natural for them to recruit older workers into the organization. Older workers began filling jobs as drivers for the program in the mid 1980s, and now make up a large part of the workforce. Of the 25 drivers and dispatchers, 19 are over 55, and half of those employees work full time.
Recruitment is primarily through referrals from current employees. All employees are eager to help others, which they see as an integral part of their job. The employees, who are unionized, receive benefits that include vacation days, sick days, personal days and a paid training program. Management and employees work in collaboration through committees and written feedback mechanisms. Drivers and dispatchers have flexible hours and schedules, and overtime is never mandated.
The organization sponsors outings and events for employees and they work hard to recognize employee accomplishments. Transportation services is a growing, in-demand occupation, and one well suited to the strong customer-service skills of older workers.
According to Tom Scott, CEO of the Lawrence County Community Action Partnership, “Employing older workers makes good business sense. They have a very strong work ethic, bring a vast amount of knowledge with them to the job, and can relate to our customers as many of them are senior citizens. I also find that they are safe, courteous drivers who represent our agency in a positive light while working within the community.”
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Home Instead Senior Care
It was President and CEO Paul Hogan's own family experience caring for his grandmother for 12 years that helped him realize the need for non-medical eldercare and companionship services to help seniors live independently at home. In 1994, Lori and Paul Hogan opened the company’s very first office to assist other local families like theirs. Now, just over a decade later, the company is the leader in the global non-medical senior care industry, with more than 700 independently owned and operated offices throughout the U.S., Canada and many other parts of the world.
While the locations, cultures and languages within the Home Instead Senior Care network are diverse, the company’s high-quality, non-medical services remain similar worldwide: such as, light housework, meal preparation, medication reminders, transportation, errands, shopping, companionship, and even Alzheimer’s and dementia care.
Helping to take care of seniors requires skills such as patience, dedication and maturity qualities that are most often found in older workers. And, Home Instead CAREGivers benefit from flexible work hours and locations, and no certification, licensure or special education is required.
This is an employment environment that’s ideally suited to the mature worker. Not surprisingly, you’ll find that some 90 percent of the 37,000 Home Instead CAREGivers are over the age of 50 with many of them bringing real-life, care-giving experience to their work with clients. In fact, about three-quarters of Home Instead CAREGivers have previously served as informal caregivers for family or friends.
In addition, Home Instead Senior Care’s ongoing education program features the most current advice and guidance for CAREGivers, such as communicating with clients, and planning activities with them; recognizing senior illnesses and depression; and safety training.
By the year 2030, 70 million Americans 20 percent of the population will be over the age of 65. And at one point or another, a significant number of these seniors will require non-medical, in-home care assistance that will allow them to remain safely and comfortably at home for at home as long as possible.
Home Instead Senior Care provides a perfect example of the strength of seniors caring for seniors; the importance of workers receiving continuous training; and the tremendous power of tapping the country’s older workforce to meet a critical and growing service need in our society. “Our franchises actively recruit older workers,” said Paul Hogan. “Seniors bring a level of wisdom to the job and an ability to relate to older people that is not often found in younger people.”
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