By Emily Allen, Foundation Advisor

With a grant from the Sloan Foundation, AARP and the AARP Foundation are working with the NRF Foundation to develop a resource for retail employers that helps them to:
1) recognize the value of retaining their existing older workforce and recruiting mature workers to reduce skill and labor shortages; and
2) implement workplace flexibility strategies and practices designed to meet the needs of the older workforce.

The project has three distinct phases. The first phase, which began in September 2006, surveyed over 200 large and small retail businesses to identify what they currently know about the aging workforce and workplace flexibility policies and practices. The survey results were then used to develop learning and assessment tools aimed at addressing the gaps of knowledge of these two important issues.

In the second phase, which began in January 2007, the learning and assessment tools will be disseminated through a multi-faceted workshop for employers in six targeted regions of the country. Following the workshops, participants will develop individual plans of action to put into place flexible workplace practices based on their identified needs.

To date, we have held 3 workshops: St. Louis, Durham, and San Marcos, Texas. The key learnings from the workshops so far have been that while initially employers may say they offer flexibility, with some additional guidance, they realize they have some work to do to make the practices truly effective. Through helping them develop their action plans, we help them focus on making the practices:

• Formal (that there are actual written practices in place that promote the use of flexibility while still maintaining the important culture of the organization)
• Less rigid (moving away from the notion that part time equals flexibility)
• More employee owned (such as scheduling)

The third phase, which begins in June 2007, puts employer plans into action, tracking the results and using the results to create a communications campaign designed to provide information to all retailers and other industries.

Our goal is to conclude with a proactive and targeted retail industry response to the demographics changes in the U.S. labor force. We plan to measure our progress by the number of mature workers satisfied with jobs in the retail industry and the number of retail employers who have cost-effectively changed their business environment to appeal to the mature worker.