By Sloane M. Perron
Maine has the nation’s largest population of people aged 65 and over, making up 22.5% of the state’s total population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. An aging population and declining birth rates are negatively impacting the workforce across the country, but nonprofit organizations are finding comprehensive solutions to alleviate the talent shortage.
While retirement has caused a major turnover in nonprofit leadership and a loss of organizational knowledge, both the Maine Council on Aging and Southern Maine Agency on Aging believe that recruiting older workers is the key to solving the workforce shortage across all sectors, especially in nonprofits.
“Age discrimination is a big problem. It’s holding us back. We don’t think of older people as the future. Yet the 2013 Maine Employment Advancement Report said the best solution was to get older workers back into the workforce, and 10 years later in 2023, the report still says older workers are probably the best we have. Employers are doing nothing to build this highly functioning, multigenerational workforce,” said Jess Maurer, executive director of the Maine Council on Aging.
Photo / Courtesy of Maine Council on Aging
Jess Maurer is executive director of the Maine Council on Aging.
Thanks to improved health habits and technology, Americans are living longer than ever before. This increased longevity is upending the traditional idea of retiring in your 60s. Financially, living longer means more expenses to pay throughout your life. Additionally, people remain active, career-driven, and want to find their place in a meaningful work community. Whether working full-time, part-time, or volunteering, older adults are filling the gaps created by labor shortages.
Maurer said nonprofits are already accustomed to making a meaningful impact in their communities, despite tight budgets. The creative problem-solving and inclusive nature of nonprofits makes the industry well-suited to foster this new wave of older workers. To stay competitive in recruiting, employers need to try innovative work schedules and ideas. “It’s a reality. We’re all going to be working longer. So let’s do things differently. Let’s do gap years. Let’s do sabbaticals. There are nonprofits in Maine that already offer sabbaticals to all their employees. The key here is that nonprofits have the flexibility and the ability to offer flexible work environments in ways that many other businesses can’t. Anyone who thinks they can’t do that is thinking outside the box. Because we’re going to have to get creative. This is the future wave of the workforce.”
Both involuntary and mandatory departures are creating significant change in leadership in Maine’s nonprofit sector. As a result, organizations are having to quickly shift and adapt their already stretched workforce to fill leadership roles. Maurer advises that having a plan is essential to maintaining a gentle and unified transition.
“Some leaders have been in charge for 15, 20 years, sometimes even longer, which means a lot of the organizational memory is gone. It’s hard to find replacements for leaders who may have been involved in founding the nonprofit, whose ideas they originated, and who are now stepping down from their roles. So succession planning is a really important aspect of nonprofits,” Maurer explained.
The Maine Council on Aging is working hard to reframe the narrative around aging in the workforce, which typically has negative connotations, while focusing on the workforce of nonprofits and other organizations. By eliminating stigmas and misconceptions that older workers are more expensive to hire or can’t be trained in certain fields, Maurer hopes that all employers in Maine will be open to hiring older workers. Currently, 23% of Maine’s population is over 65, which means there’s a huge untapped pool of workers who already have career experience, developed skill sets, and are ready for a new chapter in life.
“I’m really trying to attract everyone to jobs in Maine. I want to hire the best people, and that person could be 22 or they could be 82. Maine employers that aren’t doing the same are missing out,” Maurer said.
Megan Walton, CEO of Southern Maine Agency for Aging, echoed Maurer’s sentiments regarding the impact of longer lifespan and how older workers will become increasingly important in the future, especially as younger generations have fewer children to enter the workforce in the future.
Photo / Courtesy of Southern Maine Department of Aging
Meg Walton is CEO of the Southern Maine Agency for Senior Citizens.
Rather than pitting younger workers against older workers, Walton believes employers should recognise the benefits of seeing cohesive teams made up of people with different life experiences and knowledge levels – this diversity of backgrounds enriches an organisation.
“Today’s younger workers will be tomorrow’s older workers. I think what we’re trying to do as workers and as employers is build a culture and a community where people want to stay in work or find different opportunities at different points in their lives. And the only way to do that is to have really inclusive work practices across our nonprofit organizations, which is looking at people holistically and finding ways to keep them employed and contributing over the long term in the ways that they want to,” she said.
Federal programs such as Community Service Employment for Seniors provide job training to older adults and offer financial incentives to employers willing to provide work opportunities to older adults.
While the numbers point to a future need to tap into Maine’s older worker population, Walton hopes organizations also recognize that people over 60 are already filling labor gaps. This is especially true for older volunteers who aren’t receiving a paycheck and are simply providing needed services at nonprofits out of a passion to help others.
“At my agency alone we have over 400 volunteers, the majority of whom are over 60 years old. These volunteers do a great job of directly serving seniors in their community. We have over 1,450 volunteers at senior services agencies across the state, and we all oversee them. People really want to give back. People really want to take care of their neighbors. People want to look out for individuals in their community and make sure they have what they need. So while we have a serious workforce shortage, I also think Maine has a very unique cultural element that will serve us well in meeting the challenges we face.”
