Flying South For The Winter

By Daniel Kadlec

Joyce Thompson, 58, loves the weather in Tucson, Ariz. She would love to stay there year-round, but most of her extended family lives in Saltville, Va., where she grew up, and she's determined to spend at least three months a year there with her mother. What Thompson, a career nurse, needed--and found--was a job that would let her split her time between the two cities.

It turns out that Thompson's employer, Carondelet Health Network, offers what many believe will become, as the population ages, the hottest thing in job benefits since the 401(k): seamless employment in two or more places.

Most workers taking advantage of those programs are so-called snowbirds, who live in the North but flee the freezing temperatures from January through March. For a lot of reasons, the population of working snowbirds is expected to explode over the next few decades. For one thing, baby boomers are just beginning to enter their Florida years. Many are determined to keep working on their own terms--some because they want to, others because they must.

The health-care industry, with its chronic shortage of nurses and burgeoning client base in Sun Belt states, is a natural pioneer of such programs. But increasingly, other kinds of companies are getting involved, especially giant retail chains like Borders, Home Depot and CVS Pharmacy.

Carondelet's program, which began five years ago, is among the oldest in the U.S. According to Jane Levine, Carondelet's director of human resources, it's having the intended effect: attracting nurses to Tucson from well-staffed hospitals in the North. About 100 nurses representing 10% of the staff participate. "It gives us a good combination of seasoned professionals and new grads," says Levine.

Flexible employment--flex time, part time, job sharing and telecommuting--is more and more important to today's workers, and it's among the top criteria AARP uses when choosing its annual Best Employers for Workers over 50 list. Mercy Health System in Janesville, Wis., another health-care provider, topped the list last month partly because of its snowbird program, which is designed to make it easy for staff members to escape Wisconsin's brutal winters. Carondelet and Mercy are the only two companies on the AARP list of 50 with snowbird programs, but Deborah Russell, who puts together the list for AARP, predicts that half her Best Employer companies will offer a snowbird option within five years. Already, Home Depot and CVS have about 300 warm-weather warriors each. They have little trouble absorbing their sun-loving workers because the crowds in their stores fluctuate with the seasons.

There's been a lot of talk lately about the coming workforce crisis--a shortage of all kinds of skilled workers as boomers begin to retire. It hasn't hit yet, but it will. By 2014, folks 50 and older will make up nearly a third of the U.S. workforce, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Jobs for snowbirds are one way that thoughtful companies are preparing. And those programs are one more way that you can tailor your retirement years to what best suits your needs.

Kadlec's latest book is The Power Years: A User's Guide to the Rest of Your Life