Retired but not Tired
Some years ago, the Parliament of Uganda debated a motion to reduce retirement age for public servants from age 55 to age 50 and the Prime Minister who moved this motion was himself aged 68 years. In the end parliament decided not to reduce but to raise the retirement age in Uganda from 55 to 60 years. Right now, the Chief Justice of Uganda reached a mandatory retirement age of 70 years however, the President wants him reappointed and the person has also stated publicly that he is still strong and ready to continue in the service but there is an outcry against his reappointment.
Africa is short of skilled personnel in many fields yet many African countries have retirement ages that are between 50 – 55 years. Developed countries with surplus of skilled personnel, have either no retirement age or it is higher than the African norms.
I want to make a case for the many retired but not tired public employees who are underutilized in our countries. Many of these colleagues are not prepared for retirement and are still very fit both intellectually and physically. They are a repository of institutional memory and understand their areas of expertise better than anyone else. The retirement pension that they receive are often too small for them to live on and most embark on new ways of making a living that are not in their line of specialization and the country ends up losing the full harvest of the investment in the individuals.
The most frequently cited reason why public servants have to retire when they are at the prime of their careers is the need to create space for upcoming younger colleagues. In this case, it is argued that raising retirement age would lead to bloating of the public service which makes the wage bill unsustainable. It should be possible to keep the public service numbers stable without premature retirement of the senior cadres through appropriate structuring.
Another pool of retired but not tired community is the international civil servants who retire from the various arms of the UN system. Many of these grew up in the local public service before moving on to the UN system from which they retire. It is desirable for countries to look out for these individuals and put their expertise to use after their return to the countries. One of the challenges is the reluctance of the country public servants to open up to “outsiders”. Added to this are the diaspora who chose to retire abroad but who could be encouraged to come back home even if it is for short periods of time on a regular basis annually.
I would like to encourage African governments, private sector and diaspora groups, to look seriously at making better use of human capacity in the retired but not tired community.
Sincerely,
Francis
Comments (15)
Tessie Tzavaras Catsambas
You raise a critical question with many facets and implications—potentially, for example, the loss of knowledge versus the continued financial burden of higher-paid public servants staying longer on the job. I pose two slightly different considerations:
(1) Retired but not tired and continuing to serve in retirement
I am inspired by the retirees association of the U.S. Agency for International Development. On a volunteer basis (depending on time and inclination), a subgroup of retired public servants has organized to continue to contribute to the Agency in different ways (careful not to place those in private practice in a conflict of interest). These professionals are not in leadership positions anymore, but they continue to serve the public behind the scenes.
So, what mechanisms and opportunities could we create in African countries (and all our countries) for public servants to serve past retirement?
(2) Taking mentorship and succession seriously to unleash younger potential
As we live longer and stay in our positions as we age, we tend to look to our contemporaries as “qualified” and dismiss younger people as “inexperienced.” This is true not only in Africa, but certainly even more in cultures that have more age-hierarchy and respect for age in their culture. We older people have to mentor and give opportunities to younger people in our organizations. (My organization is rolling out a mentorship program for an international organization faced with this issue right now.)
When my 20-year-old daughter heard about the concern about the millennial generation taking over when they do not have enough experience, she said, “Maybe we will do better than your generation, Mother. Your generation has not done everything so well that you should want to keep being in charge.”
So, what cross generational exchange and collaboration practices might we encourage to serve our organizations?
Respectfully,
Tessie
Francis Omaswa
Good to hear from you.
You have given us two concrete suggestions namely:
1. to emulate the example of USAID retirees and form similar associations in countries. It would be good to learn more about their experience.
2. the retirees need to be aware that time to go will have to come and to prepare for their departure through mentorship and succession planning. However the retirees still need to be usefully deployed. Is this what they can continue to do after they retire? Will the others accept this?
Regards
Francis.
Prof. Lovemore Gwanzura
Prof. Lovemore Gwanzura by the way I am not yet 65 still a Young Turk
Mr C A Samkange
• Zimbabwe retired a cardiac surgeon because of the mandatory age of retirement. Tanzania took that same cardiologist and started an open heart surgery programme. Tanzania had access to his birth certificate and passport at the time of recruitment.
• Tanzania retired a neurosurgeon whom Botswana has also used for the last 5 years.
The madness is not restricted to any one of our countries in the region. The Health services in each country are using the same reasons to perpetuate the same madness. It is in all of us.
We need to tell ourselves to think outside the box and:
1. As Prof Omaswa has argued, optimize the use of the skills we, as countries and communities, invested in.
a. Work them till they wish to retire or are unable to continue;
i. Our medical boards have mechanisms for protecting the individual from himself and the patients from the individual. Where these mechanisms are weak, strengthen them!
b. Recognize that they are more efficient in assessing a new health case and treat more efficaciously as in most of our operating environment it is the clinical skill that counts more than the technological support base.
2. Welcome the return of diaspora technocrats either
a. On a permanent basis (why should it be more acceptable for an Englishman to retire to Spain and an African cannot retire to Kampala from Liverpool?)
b. On short term returns where the diaspora individual has reasons not to re-settle?
C A Samkange
Grace Kalimugogo
African Governments complain of eternal shortages of human resources for health and yet:
1. Do not have an inventory of redundant health professional that could be mobilized when required.
2. Do not recruit many of their newly qualified health workers who get forced prematurely into private practice or migrate;
3. They retire others at 60 years or so and do not make use of returnees (who have been working in other countries or the UN and other organizations). Retired health professionals include experts and researchers in many disciplines that some Governments are forced to import. These senior professionals would be role models and mentor younger people: "Practice makes perfect" but requires guidance (same as a child growing up). Moreover, the retirees would make less demands on the limited health budget, and some who come from abroad have contacts that would be beneficial to countries of origin.
The few times the retired professionals are invited to provide services, this is for very remote areas. This is discouraging rather than an incentive.
What is the satisfactory explanation for Judges (in Uganda and elsewhere) to retire at 70 years and not medical or veterinary Doctors, or indeed other professionals? The salary rates for the Judiciary are, moreover, much, much higher than other professionals? How can a Doctor who runs a rural hospital or health Centre be retired at 60 years when there is no planned replacement? Governments have to be made to understand that there are many simple solutions to the challenges facing the health sector, if only the public could be invited to share their ideas or proposals.
When I worked briefly with World Vision International many years ago, many of the colleagues were retired (senior) health professionals from the developed world. Many were working free of charge: just needed transport and full board coverage. Our countries can easily find our which individuals are available and willing to provide services at low cost.
Miriam Were
I always appreciate the topics you bring up and regret that sometime between rural and urban responsibilities, the emails get squeezed out since I have resisted having a handheld email facility.
What so many colleagues have said is so true. When I retired from the UN in 2000, I actually wrote out RETIRED PROFESSIONALS ASSOCIATION. I had intended to have such an association registered to which was open to all professionals of various fields in Africa. Then within the Association, there would be the Teachers Chapter, the Health Professionals Chapter and so on. There were two basic considerations.
One was to explore how we could continue to contribute to our specific professional areas. The other was to form a critical mass of the educated and enlightened people of Africa for contribution in the
larger context of the African scene. What derailed my follow up on this was that I was appointed to the
post of Chair of the Kenya National AIDS Control Council and enter into crisis management of the situation as it was then. So at least I cannot complain of being underused since to date my professional
experiences are made use of even though my Chairmanship ended after two terms of 3 years each.
It would be wonderful if we could get some formalized arrangement out of this
discussion.
With kind regards,
Miriam.
Midion Mapfumo Chidzonga
Regards.
Midion
Elsheikh Badr
This topic is no doubt vital in view of the human resource crisis looming in several countries and especially in Africa. Like productivity, I think that optimizing use of retired health personnel can compensate in some way or another for numerical shortages seen in our countries.
In Sudan the retirement age is 60 years but we have similar arrangements to Zimbabwe and may be some other countries in extending the retirement age to 65 with special focus on university staff. The government recently introduced a regulation that people over 60 may not assume direct managerial responsibilities. I think this came out in favor of younger generation and out of an observation that senior civil servants tend to cling to power often describing younger colleagues as inexperienced!! The Sudanese culture of highly respecting older people helped to perpetuate this. in some critical health services, incumbents usually remain in services for up to 70 years based on annually renewable contracts only approved by the Cabinet.
The growing private sector in Sudan represents another incubator for retirees. In fact most of the clinicians continue to render their own services to people through their private clinics (in which they continue to death or total disability!) and private hospitals. a rising phenomenon in Sudan is the clustering of retired and senior professionals to establish private medical schools and universities; in fact this is currently dominating the scene. Another example is a private university which adopts a policy of recruiting Sudanese health professionals who retire from UN agencies and from abroad. A number of these people are now clustered in this university which is more and more gaining recognition and popularity! In Summary I would say that the private sector is helping a lot in making use of the potential of retired professionals and retaining them inside the country. signs are also there to show that public sector institutions are moving in the same direction in response to HRH scarcity currently exacerbated by rising trends of migration in particular to Gulf States where expansion of health services and demand for health workforce is rapidly increasing.
In conclusion I would say that our countries (and in fact retired professionals themselves) are showing more or less of examples of using the potential of the retired folk BUT it is evident that more conscious and structured policy solutions are needed in this direction. I hope that this discussion contributes to that end.
Regards
Elsheikh Badr
Philemon Ngomu
Interesting topic and very relevant to us as a network of professional organizations for nurses and midwives in the Southern African region. I have circulated the message to our members for participation.
It has become a concern that nurses and midwives, as back born of the health system need to avail themselves for long services demonstrating a high professional devotion to respond to the nature of their occupation, the caring profession, with compassion, love; proving quality care through best practices, ethical and professional conduct. These qualities developed through years of practice and the older generation ‘about to retire’ are so needed to provide mentorship to the younger ‘lions’.
Avery early retirement age is therefore a problem for the nursing profession. At 50, 55 and even 60 nurses are still needed for this purpose and the profession cannot afford sending them on retirement too early. It is also obvious that, the younger generation easily migrate for greener pastures aggravating situation of shortage in HRH. We need to keep a bit longer in service those who have gone over the migration ambition. This is confirmed by the ministerial call in South Africa for retired nurses and midwives to come back and serve on contact basis. To my experience, most still effective up to 70+ years of age. If we don’t use them in public sector, they are used by private sector and NGOs, most in non-clinical area while they could still be use few more years in clinical to close the gaps left by shortages.
I am a young professional (41), but recognize the importance to keep Retired, but not tired in service to enhance professionalism and closing the gaps left by shortages. In the health sector, in most African countries, there is no such thing as leaving opportunities to others. Our government still needs to avail more financial resources to fill the vacancies and come closer to patient - HCW ratios. We are far behind WHO recommendations and we need to continue advocating for increase in health budgets to fill the positions. Those retiring from international organizations should come back and offer that expertise at national level. They are needed in Universities, Ministries, professional associations, regulatory and institutional boards (councils)… as advises and senior lecturers...
Thank you.
Kate Tulenko
I have three other suggestions:
1) Some institutions may want to consider tenure limits on certain senior positions. For example no one, no matter what their age, could serve as a division chief for longer than 10 years. After ten years in the same position they would have to openly compete for other positions in the organization. I like this idea for two reasons: it unblocks the career ladder while still enabling competent people to stay in the institution. Also I think most people, no matter what their age, do their best work when they are relatively new to a position: they bring a fresh perspective and excitement to their new position. The World Bank has a policy that certain positions can not be held by the same person for more than seven years.
2) Most institutions need to improve their performance evaluation of all employees, no matter what their age or seniority. That would help the institution identify people whose performance is not up to par or is declining and address the situation.
3) A third option is that of academia and mentoring. My father is in his late 70s and struggling to keep his travel-heavy career up despite multiple surgeries and significantly declining mobility. He is associated with a university and his backup plan is to teach and mentor students. I know his students will learn so much from my dad and his 50 year career; he’s the living history of his field.
Best Wishes,
Kate
Sylvia Vriesendorp
I was very excited about discovering this conversation which was brought to my attention my colleagues at Management Sciences for Health (MSH).
Let me introduce myself first. I am the Global Technical Lead for Leadership at MSH. One of our initiatives, which is still in its infancy and very much in an exploratory stage, resonates deeply with the focus of this thread.
Those senior professionals who have reached retired age represent an enormous investment: they themselves have invested decades in becoming seasoned professional. In addition, they represent an investment made by their governments (or international organizations) through academic and on the job training. And many may have also benefitted from opportunities offered by various donor agencies. As all of you write, these people now find themselves on the sidelines at the young age of 50, or 55, or even 60. We have senior colleagues and counterparts in the countries we work in express concern about this sidelining.
We at MSH have been thinking about this lost opportunity and tremendous resource that is wasted in the face of serious HR challenges. We believe that, as all of you contributors agree, these retired but not tired professionals could be deployed again, serving their countries and themselves, by becoming a critical resource pool from which their governments can draw for any of the following needs that we know exist (and to which some of you alluded):
a) to work with (not yet retired) people in the most senior positions whose management and leadership style are either causing problems or who are not using their full potential, therefore short changing themselves, their co-workers, their teams and, ultimately, their country; in this case the retired elders function as coaches.
b) to work with young professionals at the beginning of their professional careers and teach them the ropes. After all, these young professionals will become the country’s top managers and leaders in another 20 years; in this case they serve as mentors.
c) to serve on commissions, task teams, special projects and special advisory functions that require deep expertise, wisdom and time; in this case they serve as consultants.
The situation has to be a win-win for all parties. We believe that it can be so: those retired professionals who are done with travel and prefer to work in their own country would find meaningful work and income; those who do want to travel and serve outside their own country, they can assist in neighboring countries (more likely as consultants than as coaches or mentors). And most would be able to determine the pace and intensity of their work and combine this with attention to their families, farms and hobbies.
How this would be operationalized requires some focused thinking which I think we could do by continuing the conversation and possibly in other settings as some of you suggest. We could hold conversations at international gatherings that focus on HR - on such gaterhing is happening in November in Brazil. We could gauge the interest of HR Directorates and Civil Service Commissions. I am sure some of you have connections you can activate and have such conversations one on one. We can come together, virtually maybe, and share what we are learning. Can we make this happen? Yes, I think we can.
The ideal would be to come up with a plan that, ultimately, would make this a fully owned and financed government priority - the trained coaches and mentors would be hired by the government on a long or short term basis to fulfill such functions. For the set up and preparation of retired but not tired professionals into coaches, mentors and consultants, I am sure that we (MSH) could be of assistance. I look forward to the continuation of this conversation.
Respectfully yours,
Sylvia Vriesendorp
Global Technical Lead for Leadership
Management Sciences for Health
Lebogang Lebese
Thank you for such an interesting topic. I totally agree and support your proposal for the continent, to reconsider the retirement age of health professionals. From the SADC Regional point of view, there is a need for health professionals across the board. The shortages are mainly because we are producing less than required and we are retiring health professionals earlier when they still have the energy and power to continue their services. Utilisation of those health professionals particularly nurses and doctors for extra years would go a long way to provide the necessary required skills in the health services.
One of the innovative ways to utilise those skills will be through exchange programmes where the retired health professionals make themselves available to provide skills of certain expertise in health. This is a programme that we are hoping to implement as a region to strengthen the capacity of the public service. We are in the process of mobilising resources to implement such a programme; we call upon Partners with interest in supporting such a programme to contact me and will share with them the plan.
I also agree that we need to use more effectively those public servants from the UN etc. in the Region more.
Regards
Lebo
Sylvia Vriesendorp
By the way, I do agree with Gerald Gwinji that payment for services by the 'retired but not tired' health professionals is critical for the reasons he mentioned - this is not about volunteer work. How to make that happen is our collective creative challenge.
Gerald Gwinji
It would be interesting to state our age category as we respond eg 50 to 55 etc. I am 50 to 55. Those from largely the first world who volunteer beyond retirement usually have a good pension, are assured of social protection and are in countries with manageable unemployment rates. It would be a rather hard sale for most retired"professionals from our continent to go this way (volunteering) as they would still need to earn a full salary, in the face of governments facing huge youth unemployment rates and therefore 'pushing' for youth employment. That having being said i totally agree with colleagues that we waste a lot of potentially active human resources by blanket retirement policies.
Sylvia Vriesendorp
I was very excited about discovering this conversation which was brought to my attention my colleagues at Management Sciences for Health (MSH).
Let me introduce myself first. I am the Global Technical Lead for Leadership at MSH. One of our initiatives, which is still in its infancy and very much in an exploratory stage, resonates deeply with the focus of this thread.
Those senior professionals who have reached retired age represent an enormous investment: they themselves have invested decades in becoming seasoned professional. In addition, they represent an investment made by their governments (or international organizations) through academic and on the job training. And many may have also benefitted from opportunities offered by various donor agencies. As all of you write, these people now find themselves on the sidelines at the young age of 50, or 55, or even 60. We have senior colleagues and counterparts in the countries we work in express concern about this sidelining.
We at MSH have been thinking about this lost opportunity and tremendous resource that is wasted in the face of serious HR challenges. We believe that, as all of you contributors agree, these retired but not tired professionals could be deployed again, serving their countries and themselves, by becoming a critical resource pool from which their governments can draw for any of the following needs that we know exist (and to which some of you alluded):
a) to work with (not yet retired) people in the most senior positions whose management and leadership style are either causing problems or who are not using their full potential, therefore short changing themselves, their co-workers, their teams and, ultimately, their country; in this case the retired elders function as coaches.
b) to work with young professionals at the beginning of their professional careers and teach them the ropes. After all, these young professionals will become the country’s top managers and leaders in another 20 years; in this case they serve as mentors.
c) to serve on commissions, task teams, special projects and special advisory functions that require deep expertise, wisdom and time; in this case they serve as consultants.
The situation has to be a win-win for all parties. We believe that it can be so: those retired professionals who are done with travel and prefer to work in their own country would find meaningful work and income; those who do want to travel and serve outside their own country, they can assist in neighboring countries (more likely as consultants than as coaches or mentors). And most would be able to determine the pace and intensity of their work and combine this with attention to their families, farms and hobbies.
How this would be operationalized requires some focused thinking which I think we could do by continuing the conversation and possibly in other settings as some of you suggest. We could hold conversations at international gatherings that focus on HR - on such gaterhing is happening in November in Brazil. We could gauge the interest of HR Directorates and Civil Service Commissions. I am sure some of you have connections you can activate and have such conversations one on one. We can come together, virtually maybe, and share what we are learning. Can we make this happen? Yes, I think we can.
The ideal would be to come up with a plan that, ultimately, would make this a fully owned and financed government priority - the trained coaches and mentors would be hired by the government on a long or short term basis to fulfill such functions. For the set up and preparation of retired but not tired professionals into coaches, mentors and consultants, I am sure that we (MSH) could be of assistance. I look forward to the continuation of this conversation.
Respectfully yours,
Sylvia Vriesendorp
Global Technical Lead for Leadership
Management Sciences for Health