While lots of people who retire have been looking forward to it, not all of them are ready to throw in the towel on working.
In fact, some may want to take advantage of an emerging retirement benefit that one company, at least, thinks is so valuable that they're paying retirees to do so.
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NPR reports that Intel is paying stipends for retirees to take on fellowships at various nonprofit organizations, where they can put their experience to work in a totally new direction.
The program that brings retirees together with the second-career organizations they now work in, Encore.org, is a nationwide effort, says the report, that brings retiring corporate workers into mission-driven organizations, where they are known as Encore Fellows.
Intel, thus far, is the only company paying for the fellowship stipends—about $25,000—as a basic employee benefit. According to the report, Intel has put more than $30 million into approximately 1,000 fellowships over the past five years.
At a time when many retirees are looking more for a "second chapter" to their careers rather than a future filled with rounds of golf and travel, the company looks upon its contributions to the program pretty much as the fellows regard their new labors.
"We feel like we're helping our communities," Ogden Reid, Intel's vice president for human resources, is quoted saying in the report. He adds, "Our retirees give us really positive feedback … and our workforce that's here see that happening to folks who've had a long career and I think that makes them feel good about the company."
And that $30 million the company is spending to send retired workers off to such places as the Virginia Garcia Memorial Health Center in Oregon? "In the scheme of our total labor cost, it's a very small number," Reid says.
Of course, while the paid fellowships provide meaningful work for those not really ready to spend time on the beach or in a rocking chair, they also provide retirees with income that, at a time when many are coming up short in retirement savings, can make all the difference in how they manage their expenses once the regular day job goes away.
The health center is pleased, too—as one might expect, with seven Encore Fellows working there. "They bring a certain discipline, a certain rigor, to looking at problems and solving them," according to Gil Munoz, the center's CEO, who says in the report that those fellows are crucial. He adds, "Having these Encore Fellows who could help lead a project can be the key to whether it's successful or not."
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