Business after 50 - Why innovation and mentoring is all the rage
Sometimes you need guidance and expertise to assist you in starting or changing a career. Perhaps you need new skills, need help finding a new employer, guidance in how to learn everything you need to start a career, or help in getting the technology you need.
Take Harry Aguado. He has been a music composer all his life. Then his eyesight failed due to Stargardt’s disease, a form of macular degeneration which is a slow deterioration of his sight. He could not write scores, he could not read his own music, read the parts back or conduct a rehearsal. “It was very heartbreaking for me,” says Aguado. “Thirty years of work were basically sketched and in fragments.”
The State Department of Rehabilitation referred him to JVS (Jewish Vocational Services) where he got help. JVS, through its donors and supporters, provided Aguado new musical equipment and computer technology, the most important of which was a 42″ flat screen plasma monitor, and special glasses that enlarge written and printed music charts so he can once again see the musical notes he is composing. “This gives me quite a degree of visibility,” says Aguado. JVS also set him up with a business plan, timeline and practical steps to start his own business at home. “For the first time in I can’t remember, I feel whole. The world is suddenly flooding back to me with opportunity.”
Like in Aguado’s story, new technology and medication is making it possible for many people to continue working, when just a few years ago their so-called “productive years” would have ended, along with the quality of their lives. Getting access to these innovations is just one of the services JVS provides. Consider those people new to the country, or those re-entering the job market, and students struggling to get ahead. JVS also has a unique program for women - WoMentoring.
Womentoring
Claudia Finkel, chief operating officer of JVS, says that WoMentoring pairs business women as mentors for women who are starting their own business, beginning their professional careers or changing careers.
“We began to realize that many women who needed to reenter the labor market were isolated and didn’t have networking skills,” explains Finkel. “So by pairing them with experienced businesswomen, our clients learned to network and improved their skills in many areas.”
Any woman can participate, but typically clients are women who have had a crisis. No, they don’t have to enter the “Starting Over” house where women bare their souls on national daytime TV. Instead, they enter a well organized year-long program to address their needs. These women MAY have various barriers including language, emotional upheaval, divorce or the sudden loss of a job, or they just need guidance to shift their direction.
JVS counselors network internally and research and network with associations, colleges, universities to find mentors. Then counselors and the mentor help the client to develop a plan including the goals they wish to achieve. A typical plan covers three areas for the client to work on and six to eight months of the annual program is spent with a mentor through personal meetings or phone calls.
At their most recent awards luncheon, one woman was going into stand-up comedy, another was starting her own nonprofit for after school arts programs for disabled children, another was pursuing a degree.
Finkel says they’re always looking for qualified mentors. “We are interested in finding mentors who have strong mentoring skills of being strategic and realistic, rather than matching business interests to our clients.”
Susan Pomerantz is president of Concepts for Living, a free residential placement service for seniors. She has mentored Maryalice Reilly in her career change from former careers as a Capitol Hill political activist/lobbyist and international sales. “I always wanted to do more, to give back, so I’ve always volunteered with the elderly,” says Reilly. Now she’s considering which area of serving the elderly she wants to pursue, possibly public relations, or working in administration.
JVS has another program called SAGE for 40+. Marketing Director Katherine Moore says this program is targeted to individuals who want to “re-career” due to technology changes, industry moves or mergers, etc. “We have workshops designed to see an individual’s skills and interests in ways to open their eyes to new opportunities. And in today’s market, being a senior worker is not what it used to be.”
The Labor Department classifies workers over the age of 45 as mature, adds moore. Yet the trend is that many people are going to work past the traditional retirement age - partly because they like to work, partly because of financial need and partly because medical advances have helped keep us younger. And research is showing that working keeps people mentally sharp. Older workers are also valuable because of their knowledge. And Business Week says that increased productivity of older Americans and higher labor-force participation could add 9% to gross domestic product by 2045, adding more than $3 trillion a year, in today’s dollars, to economic output. (assuming better health and technology reduce the productivity gap between older workers and younger counterparts.)
So perhaps in the future, when people like Jerry Rogaway, who was at the top of his career and was well past 50 when his company merged, find themselves out of a job, it won’t be as jolting as it has been.
“To make that kind of shift, to ask someone to redefine themselves isn’t easy if they weren’t expecting it,” says Moore. If you’ve been at the top of the food chain, it’s not just re-tooling, it’s about rethinking who you are and your sense of self. That is the most difficult part for mature workers.” Rogaway did fine; he is now head of Community Relations for Dynamic Nursing Services. “I love my new job,” he says.
Mature Worker Outlook Improving
But Moore agrees with a recent Business Week report that the outlook for mature workers is changing. “Historically it hasn’t been good. But the labor pool of younger workers is shrinking. Nothing like supply and demand to move thinking. I was recently in a Sharper Image store and my sales rep was in his 60s and the manager was in his late 30s, early 40s. The rep carried on a conversation with me and we even talked about NPR (National Public Radio). He had good interaction skills and he may have come from another industry. Employers will be forced to hire older workers.”
And that brings up certain issues for employers, and new entrepreneurs of any age, who are hiring more experienced people.
“In banking, tellers typically have been young moms, college students, etc. But that population is disappearing. So we’re looking at how we can structure interviews for those jobs that are sensitive to older workers. How do you run training programs that aren’t insulting to them with their wealth of experience? We’re working with employers to change their ways. Employers only respond when they’re in pain.”
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JVSLA, established in 1930, has three prime areas of service: Career, Business and Social. You can contact them at 323-788-8888 or on the web at wwwjvsla.org.