Hank starek loves working with people. It’s what kept him going at the Vancouver Police Department for 30 years, and the prospect of being away from people worried him when retirement seemed inevitable in 1993. But, with a healthy pension and a full set of golf clubs, the former deputy chief set out to enjoy retirement on the links — while keeping an eye out for “anything else I might consider.”

It was only a year or so later when Starek spotted a newspaper advertisement seeking tour-bus operators to drive and give commentary on its 55-passenger buses in the summer months. “This sounds pretty good,” Starek told his wife. “I’m going to call them and see if they’d take an old guy.”

He did, and they would. And Starek joined the ranks of retired Canadians who are not really retired after all.

More than 300,000 Canadians age 65 or older were still working in 2001, the latest year for which data are available. Of that total, 57% were between the ages of 65 and 69, 26% were 70 to 74 years old and 17% were 75 or older.

It would appear, says Patricia Lovett-Reid, senior vice president of TD Waterhouse Canada Inc. in Toronto, that there is a major shift in how Canadians regard retirement.
“An aging population base, looming labour shortages, the decline in defined-benefit pension plans and lower expectations of income from retirement investments have
created a perfect storm that is blowing away long-held notions of life after 65,” she says.

According to a recent TD Waterhouse RRSP poll, one-third of not-yet-retired Canadian investors plan to keep working past the mandatory retirement age (25% of them part-time; 8% full-time). And of those who see their working lives stretching out indefinitely, almost three-quarters plan to work out of choice rather than necessity.

Diane McCurdy, president of Vancouver-based McCurdy Financial Planning and author of How Much is Enough? (Wiley, 2005), has found among her clients that people have dedicated their adult years to taking care of their children and their parents, and have been left with scant time to address their own dreams. In retirement, at last they can do what they want to do.

“Most people who work beyond retirement do so because they want the mental challenge,” she says. “And a lot do it just because it’s fun. They love what they’re doing.”

Indeed, says Jaff Smith, a 64-year-old retiree who spent the bulk of his working years in the sales department at Xerox Canada and who took early retirement in 1998: “If you’ve been a long-standing employee in the workforce, the reality is that unless you find something to do or win the lottery, you can become frustrated and unhappy.”

After taking some time off following his retirement, Smith took a variety of part-time assignments with organizations that were in the sales- and management-training fields.
“It was never a question that I would move on to something else when I left Xerox,” he says.

In 2004, Statistics Canada produced a report on retaining older workers that concluded would-be retirees would be more likely to stay in the workforce if they were offered certain incentives, including flexible work arrangements and a revisited definition of pension eligibility. The report revealed that more than 60% of recent retirees would have continued working if things had been different.

“When you ask older employees what’s keeping them in the workforce, [it involves] issues around the way [they’re] treated,” says Andrew Templer, a professor of management at the University of Windsor’s Odette School of Business in Windsor, Ont.
“It’s all things such as recognition and respect, a fair appraisal system, recognizing the part that 50-plus employees can play and conducting fair appraisals that are free from age biases.”

Another StatsCan study, conducted this fall, indicated that people retiring from some occupations and industries were more likely to seek post-retirement employment than others. Specifically, individuals leaving professional occupations were most likely to return to work (predicted probability of 27%), followed by managers and technicians (21%).

From an industry standpoint, retirees from information-, culture- and recreation-related fields, as well as construction, were most likely to return to the workforce.

As for what jobs retiring individuals land in, Templer says, there is no predictable pattern. “It would be best to choose a job requiring similar competencies to those the retiree possesses,” he says. “But our research suggests that the key is to go for an age-friendly employer and to look for jobs offering recognition, respect and fairness — especially in the evaluation and hiring processes.”

@page_break@At Tim Hortons, at which a large number of theoretically retired people find a new lease on employment, there is no specific policy regarding the engagement of retirees. “We encourage our store owners to hire the best candidates and [those] most qualified for the position,” says spokesperson Nick Javor. “We look for experience, responsibility and flexibility.”

The trend toward delayed retirement is good news for clients’ net worth, says Sterling Rempel, a certified financial planner with Future Values Estate & Financial Planning in
Calgary.

As for what advisors should tell clients — particularly those who find themselves self-employed after a lifetime of being employees — to do with their post-retirement income, he recommends a careful assessment of the individual’s life situation.

Does the client want as much income as possible early on in retirement, or does he or she want to save money in case it is needed to pay for long-term care? Do they want to leave a large portion of their assets to heirs or charitable causes?

The answers to those questions, says Rempel, will drive the recommendations of financial planners. IE