It's safe to say that there aren't many companies today that rival Vita Needle Co. at least in one respect–the average age of workers at the Needham, Mass.-based manufacturer of steel tubing products is 73 years old. Its oldest production employee, a retired waitress named Rosa Finnegan, just turned 94.
But where some employers would see the statistic as a problem, Vita Needle's President and CFO Fred Hartman has actively pursued this kind of workforce as a solution to a tight labor market and staggering employer healthcare costs. "Back in the 1980s, our company was on hard times," recalls Hartman, a mere 53 and a fourth-generation owner of the family firm that books about $5 million in revenues each year from about 1,000 customers worldwide. "We needed employees, but only part time, and we found that the only people applying were people who had been laid off elsewhere, who were in their 60s and 70s."
Hartman says he hired this group of workers "and then as I watched how hard and diligently they worked, a light bulb went off." Since then, the company has almost exclusively been hiring retirees, he says.
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Why? The better question is, "Why not?" First, it is a group that usually has supplemental income and is happy with part-time work. "I think all but maybe 5% of our people took jobs here because they wanted to be working," says Larry Christian, customer service manager. "Only a few of them are working because they need the money to get by." The company also reports that its workers have good attendance records, comparable with a much younger workforce.
Another significant advantage is the saving in healthcare costs that Vita Needle has realized. Since the vast majority of the 40-person workforce is on Medicare, Hartman says Vita Needle doesn't need any company health insurance plan–an enormous saving which Hartman declines to put a number on. The company also has no retirement plan, since most workers already are receiving retirement benefits from Social Security and sometimes from pensions. "Our people don't retire," says Hartman. "For most of them, this job is the last stop on the line."
There may be a lesson here for companies concerned about the rising age of their own employees. "If I were running a company and looking at 40% of my workforce retiring over the next 10 years, I'd be in a panic," says Hartman. "I'd be going around to them asking, 'What needs do you have that would allow you to stay on?' With most people, I think there's just a wealth of experience you just couldn't pay for."
He adds, "Of course, you have to plan around having older people–you know, wider aisles, shorter, flexible hours, no heavy lifting. And we have a lot of magnifying glasses around this place."
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