Seniors are assets!

This Ger­man health­care com­pany is one of the win­ners of the AARP Inter­na­tional Inno­v­a­tive Employer Award and has no prob­lem in hav­ing seniors as part of their team.

BY: Eleanor Yap

Sozial-​Holding der Stadt Mönchenglad­bach GmbH in Ger­many was one of 10 win­ners (three came from Sin­ga­pore and already revealed on this web­site) of the 2009 AARP Inter­na­tional Inno­v­a­tive Employer Award from around the world who were recog­nised for their efforts in retain­ing mature and older employ­ees. The health­care com­pany with its five sub­sidiaries has 875 employ­ees (includ­ing 32 appren­tices), of which 31% are older than 50 years of age.

The other inter­na­tional win­ners that US non-​profit organ­i­sa­tion, AARP, announced in late Sep­tem­ber included: Adecco Employ­ment Ser­vices Ltd (ser­vice sec­tor) from Canada who employs 436 employ­ees (13% of which are 50+), BMW (motor vehi­cles pro­duc­tion) in Ger­many who has 71,596 employ­ees (20% are 50+), BT Group plc (telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions) in the UK who has 103,524 employ­ees (30% are 50+), Cen­trica plc (util­i­ties) in the UK who has 27,338 employ­ees (14% are 50+), Domes­tic & Gen­eral Ser­vices Lim­ited (insur­ance) in the UK who has 747 employ­ees (9% are 50+), and SICK AG (indus­trial equipment/​commercial machin­ery) in Ger­many who has 1,879 employ­ees (17% are 50+). We speak to Sozial-​Holding der Stadt Mönchengladbach’s CEO Hel­mut Wallrafen-​Dreisow (below, far left) on what efforts he took in terms of hir­ing mature employees:

Can you give me a short back­ground of your company?

Sozial-​Holding der Stadt Mönchenglad­bach GmbH (Sozial-​Holding) was estab­lished in 1996 and emanated from the city coun­cil of Mönchenglad­bach. The city of Mönchenglad­bach (the home of F1’s Nick Hei­d­feld) is the owner of Sozial-​Holding. That is the rea­son why we offer our ser­vices only locally.

Sozial-Holding’s sub­sidiaries include: 

• Altenheime GmbH – It oper­ates five elderly retire­ment homes in the city and cur­rently has 605 residents. 

• Ambu­lante Dien­ste GmbH – It pro­vides assis­tance to elderly, who still live in their own homes. This includes house­keep­ing, deliv­ery of meals, and nurs­ing the elderly for a short time in one of our retire­ment homes. It also pro­vides care for seniors, who live in an apartment-​sharing com­mu­nity. Fur­ther­more, the employ­ees assist the elderly in other com­mon tasks such as shop­ping and doctor’s visits. 

• Beschäf­ti­gungs– und Qual­i­fizierungs GmbH (BQG) – This sub­sidiary organ­ises and coor­di­nates youth train­ing schemes and other per­sonal devel­op­ment and pro­fes­sional train­ings for unem­ployed per­sons, e.g. long-​time unem­ployed per­sons, unem­ployed women and ado­les­cents in Mönchenglad­bach, and sup­ports them socio-​pedagogically. The social work­ers are employ­ees of BQG and they are trained edu­ca­tional pro­fes­sion­als, who sup­port the par­tic­i­pants of the train­ing, if nec­es­sary. This sub­sidiary doesn’t just focus on over 50, but every­one who is unem­ployed for a very long time and/​or has no chance in find­ing reg­u­lar work.

• Bil­dungs GmbH – This sub­sidiary offers basic and advanced train­ing for those who care for the elderly. It also offers work­shops for those who are unem­ployed. BQG and Bil­dungs GmbH work together – BQG organ­ises and coor­di­nates every­thing with pub­lic author­i­ties, local Gov­ern­ment offices or employ­ers because they finance the train­ing. Bil­dungs has teach­ers as employ­ees, who teach the par­tic­i­pants of the training.

• Ser­vice GmbH – This is a state-​of-​the-​art “cook & chill” large-​scale cater­ing estab­lish­ment where employ­ees pre­pare 1,200 meals per day. This sub­sidiary pro­vides sup­port to our retire­ment homes.

Back­ground on pop­u­la­tion age­ing in your country.

What ini­tia­tives do you have that are geared to mature employees?

Some of the actions, which we have taken are: To accom­plish an annual staff appraisal and indi­vid­ual career advance­ment, to ini­ti­ate work­place health pro­mo­tion, and skill enhance­ment in par­tic­u­lar for mature work­ers. Life­long learn­ing is an inte­gral part of Sozial-Holding’s per­son­nel pol­icy and also an oper­a­tive neces­sity. Care and the qual­ity of care require a con­tin­u­ous update of knowl­edge, com­pe­tences and know-​how of all employ­ees. For exam­ple, if an employee is no longer able to work as a geri­atric nurse because of health prob­lems, we want to re-​integrate these health-​impaired per­sons by instat­ing them in other sec­tions of our com­pany or retire­ment homes.

Instead of let­ting them go, we appre­ci­ate their life expe­ri­ences and their intel­lec­tual skills. We would employ them such as a spe­cial carer of the elderly who suf­fer from Alzheimer’s dis­ease or demen­tia and they would need to talk to them, organ­ise their daily rou­tine, train their cog­ni­tive abil­i­ties, etc.

Are there any more spe­cific ini­tia­tives for mature work­ers such as them men­tor­ing the younger work­ers, etc?

Yes, for instance, our for­mer leader in one of our retire­ment homes, Mar­garet Strucken-​Jordan, is now a few months away from retire­ment. We have put her into our depart­ment on projects and qual­ity. There, she is able to sup­port the other lead­ers of our retire­ment homes with her knowledge.

Fur­ther­more there are reg­u­lar meet­ings in which all employ­ees, who are in charge of wound man­age­ment, men­tor­ship, etc (who work in our retire­ment homes) can exchange their knowledge.

Will you be adding more mature employee ini­tia­tives in the future and increas­ing your cur­rent 31 percent?

From last year onwards, we sup­ported unskilled work­ers in our com­pany with an appren­tice­ship in domes­tic sci­ence. The aver­age age of the par­tic­i­pants was 45 years; the old­est being 57 years. The appren­tice­ship ended in August 2009.

When­ever (in the future) our employ­ees are inter­ested in such skill enhance­ment, we will check the need and pos­si­bil­ity to increase their abil­i­ties. The increas­ing of our 31 per­cent depends on the per­son­nel turnover.

How much has the com­pany invested from the ini­tial costs to now in hav­ing mature work­ers in the com­pany? 

As long as we are actively pro­ceed­ing with the advance­ment for our mature work­ers, we fell it is cost-​neutral.

Who is your old­est employee?

Our old­est employee is Karl-​Josef Pen­nazatto (left), who is 72 years old, and is a car­pen­ter. A retiree for eight years now, he still works for us on “mini-​jobs”, which means, that his income – addi­tional to his ben­e­fit – is €400 (about US$597). This is part of Ger­man law.

There are some other pen­sion­ers, who work on this basis in our var­i­ous sub­sidiaries such as Mar­tin Nösen, who is 70 and Hart­mut Nat­ter­mann who is 63, are all work­ing at the recep­tion desk. Ger­hard Kipp, 67, is work­ing as an ombuds­man where he pays atten­tion to any com­plaints of a res­i­dent at our retire­ment homes or from his or her fam­ily member.

There is also Rainer Altrock, 65, who is still work­ing in our finance depart­ment. He states: “The Sozial-​Holding is an inno­v­a­tive and very inter­est­ing com­pany. I want to take an active part in its fur­ther devel­op­ment. I appre­ci­ate being able to work, even if I am now a pensioner.”

There are approx­i­mately 15 employ­ees in our retire­ment homes and they are pen­sion­ers. This group of peo­ple cook together, play games with the res­i­dents, organ­ise excur­sions and var­i­ous events for the res­i­dents, as well as get involved in spe­cial projects for the elderly and/​or demen­tia residents. 

Why do you feel mature work­ers are impor­tant in your organisation?

For Sozial-​Holding, which is a group of humans, who work for and with humans, it is impor­tant to take advan­tage of all employ­ees’ life expe­ri­ences, wis­dom and social skills, be it young or old. We recog­nised over the years that our mature work­ers develop more and more of these skills and expe­ri­ences. We want to har­ness these pos­i­tive points so they become an advan­tage for us.

What advice would you give other com­pa­nies who are look­ing at doing this?

We advise other com­pa­nies to imi­tate us and not let them­selves be so youth-​obsessed, which is com­mon in our soci­ety nowa­days. Mature work­ers’ health­care and career advance­ment might mean more costs to the com­pany ini­tially, but the effect and sus­tain­abil­ity of action taken will ensue con­tin­u­ous knowl­edge transfer.

The usual opin­ion is that younger employ­ees are quicker in com­par­i­son to the older ones. But we know from our expe­ri­ence that older employ­ees work more accu­rately. Mature employ­ees can tell younger ones on which they should focus on, what prob­lems could occur, and how to react in deal­ing with a prob­lem or dif­fi­cult sit­u­a­tion. Young employ­ees can eas­ily work in new ways; they have another point of view, which may give the mature ones an idea for their own rou­tine. When this exchange works, both can gain insights from each other on how the other is work­ing and how it could be done bet­ter. That way, they both learn from the exchange!

** SPE­CIAL THANKS TO: Clau­dia Becke of Sozial-​Holding der Stadt Mönchenglad­bach GmbH.