The statement of the U. S. Civil Service Commission study of retirement planning still seems completely appropriate today: "Many employers, both public and private, have a watchful, wait and see attitude, accompanied by a strictly limited program or none at all, because they think that the right and wrong answers have not been found in this relatively new area of personnel management."
The burden thus fell to the social sciences in the 1960s and 1970s to prove the need for the effectiveness of such retirement preparation programs, but the results to date have been criticized as "non conclusive" or "contradictory." As a result, business and government have persisted in their noncommittal, wait and see posture.
But a review of the available evidence evaluating the programs reveals it is not the evidence but the analytical framework in which the evidence has been weighed which suffers the problems of ambiguity and contradiction. There exists considerable confusion about the appropriate goals of these programs. Are they designed to develop favorable attitudes toward retirement and thereby promote good adjustment in retirement (in which case they might most properly be labeled retirement counseling programs) or are they, instead, meant to serve as an information disseminating and stimulant to planning device (in which case retirement planning programs might be a more appropriate descriptive term).
Typically, these programs are conceived and charged with the former counseling function (that is, to change attitudes and promote adjustment), but the overwhelming majority are only brief lecture series which barely fulfill the function of disseminating useful information to participants. The existing programs simply are not designed in terms of format or content to focus on basic attitude change, so it is unreasonable to condemn retirement preparation programs for their failure to accomplish this goal. Yet retirement preparation programs as typically presented by today's business and government organizations can effectively fulfill a useful planning function. They need not be wholly condemned for the failure to adequately effect attitude change and other counseling functions.
Lobby for Counseling Emphasis
Proponents most frequently lobby for programs based on these same counseling notions. In a work oriented society such as ours, they argue, although retirement precipitates a transition crisis for the individual shifting from work to non work activities, retirement preparation programs can help him to make the necessary adjustment.
Now that social science research has been unable to document any such pervasive crisis among retiring workers, critics are responding that there is no need for retirement preparation if there is no adjustment crisis. This line of thinking again overlooks the useful planning function performed in providing relevant information to workers approaching retirement age and stimulating them to do their own planning.
Meaningful evaluation of the effectiveness of these programs is not only handicapped by confusion over the appropriate goals and the lack of subsequent implementation of suitably designed programs, but also by the quality of the evaluation research. Many of the evaluation studies are methodologically weak; samples are small and non randomly selected. Operational measures of attitude changes are frequently superficially designed and inappropriately applied.
Rarely are follow up techniques employed to evaluate the long range effects of program participation, the best having a follow up after only two years. The findings of these studies frequently contradict each other; it is difficult to separate out the methodological inconsistencies from the substantive ones.
Several good studies do seem to establish the foundation for a fairly reputable evaluation of program effectiveness. This paper will attempt to reassess the utility of current retirement preparation programs, drawing heavily on the results of three large scale, well designed studies: The longitudinal Cornell Study of Occupational Retirement (Thompson, 1958; Streib and Thompson, 1958; Streib and Schneider, 1971), the extensive University of Michigan study (Hunter, 1968, 1968) and that of the University of Oregon (Greene, et al., 1969; Pyron, 1969; Pyron and Manion, 1970).
The definitive evaluation of retirement preparation programs must wait until such time as these programs are systematically conceived, designed and implemented, and until rigorous experimental research procedures are employed that include participant randomization and long run follow up techniques.
Commitment Is Prerequisite
Until employers are convinced of the real value of retirement preparation programs (in terms of concrete gains in worker productivity and morale), no longer considering them merely fringe benefits or a token expression of concerned management's "corporate responsibility," there will not be the genuine commitment prerequisite for adequate program design. Most employer sponsored retirement preparation programs are administered by regular personnel staff counselors who take on the additional responsibility without giving up former ones; rarely is a person hired full time to administer retirement preparation programs.
Assigning the programs to the personnel rather than the training division is indicative of the employers' low level "fringe benefit" attitude. One might posit that, if retirement preparation programs are meant to serve a counseling function (that is, promote good retiree adjustment) they properly belong in the personnel department. But if the main goal is instruction on how to plan for retirement, it might more reasonably be considered the domain of training.
Training, generally considered more basic to business operations than personnel functions, tends to be more institutionalized and available to workers as a matter of course. Counseling, in contrast, is usually based on individual situations and circumstances. The stigma felt by the individual employee in taking tests or receiving counseling/advice from personnel does not carry over to his enrollment in training programs, although both may be a form of self renewal. A valid question is: Would moving retirement preparation programs from personnel to training departments and substituting the counseling emphasis to planning improve the programs' quality, employee acceptance of those programs and, ultimately, their effectiveness in aiding employees?
Guidelines for Ideal Program
There are, then, many guidelines for establishment of a good retirement preparation program.
The program should be institutionalized in much the same way that training and retraining programs are; if successful, it will reduce any shame from program participation (self admission of aging) and increase voluntary enrollment. If the program is open to all employees, enrollees would probably include representatives from all age groups (Davidson and Kunze, 1965).
The program should emphasize the planning function rather than counseling objective; that is, its goal should be to stimulate enrollees' planning by raising appropriate questions and providing relevant information. Many who refuse counseling focused on psychological adjustment to retirement might welcome concrete, objective information and assistance in financial, legal and health planning. Even employers who resist involvement with retirement preparation programs as an intrusion into individual privacy or are, at best, paternalistic might feel comfortable enough with the more concrete and objective goals of the planning oriented program to become involved at this level.
The program should be flexible to meet the differing needs of different employees. The best retirement planning often occurs in stages (Johnson and Strother, 1962; Monk, 1970). Effective long range health and financial planning should begin by the midforties; planning for leisure, avocation or part time employment can begin later, in the fifties. Serious planning for daily retirement living (for example, living on fixed incomes, choosing suitable housing, etc.) can best be considered in the last few years before retirement.
Few programs include sessions on family and social relationships primarily because employees don't often demonstrate the need for assistance in this area and it comes too close to counseling on personal matters for the employer to become involved (Tuckman and Lorge, 1952; Mack, 1958; U. S. Civil Service Commission, 1961). Nevertheless, a broad program should allow the employee to seek information or any other assistance.
Most employers find some form of group presentation (seminar format or lecture discussion style) the most efficient, convenient way to disseminate a large body of information to a large number of employees (Mack, 1958; Mitchell, 1969; Charles, 1971). But the major problem is that information will not be detailed or relevant enough to meet individual needs. Often employees are invited to ask for follow up individual counseling, but Charles (1971) found such requests infrequent. A few researchers maintain that individual counseling, despite the employer's time and cost factors, is the only way to deal satisfactorily with the divergent needs of all employees (Tuckman and Lorge, 1952; Ash, 1966; Pyron and Manion, 1970).
Content Should Vary with Needs
Even with a group program format, content should vary to meet employee needs. Different age groups seek different kinds of information, depending on whether they are engaged in long or short range planning. A company's program could also be open to its own retirees. Some who resisted retirement planning because they were unrealistically optimistic might return to the program in a more receptive frame of mind. Including retirees is not a common practice; based on indirect evidence, one would have to guess it is rare. (A 1964 National Industrial Conference Board study indicated only 20 per cent of firms had any contact with their retirees.)
Some experts suggest that a program designed for manual or hourly workers will not satisfy the needs of management employees, so they recommend two different programs (Burgess, et al., 1958). Moreover, Monk (1970) found that high level employees in one industry did not necessarily have the same concerns as those of comparable level in another. Retirement preparation programs may, therefore, be most effective when occupations of the participants are considered.
Employers considering adoption of a retirement planning program or reevaluating an existing program should begin with the specific needs of their particular employees. It would seem obvious that if a company adopts a retirement program from feelings of social responsibility (that is, an employee benefit), it would be designed to meet employees' needs. But Pyron and Manion (1970) indicate that employer response in providing programs lags far behind employee requests for assistance; when retirement preparation programs are set up by an employer, it frequently is done without assessing employees' needs or expectations. Rather, employees are "surprised" with a completely designed program, relevant only in hit or miss fashion to particular needs.
Conclusions
The major purpose of this paper has been to distinguish between two previously confused functions of retirement preparation programs counseling and planning and to reevaluate the evidence bearing on each of these functions in program effectiveness.
The current lack of enthusiasm for retirement preparation programs traces back to the empirical evidence suggesting such programs are ineffective; that is, by failing to change employees' attitudes toward work and retirement, they fail to perform their counseling functions. Several reasons for the participants' lack of substantial attitude changes have been highlighted, including the fundamental fact that the programs themselves are neither intensive enough nor properly designed to focus on such attitude changes as the basic goal. Without well designed programs, objective evaluations of effectiveness are impossible to obtain. Lacking outstanding results, employers are reluctant to implement new programs or to revamp the old. And so the situation of the 1960s persists into the 1970s a wait and see attitude by many employers.
Fulfills Useful Function
In spite of apparent failures to adequately fulfill the counseling functions with which the programs have been charged, they have served a useful function in providing information to participants and encouraging them to do their own planning. Employees have overwhelmingly expressed a desire for company assistance in retirement planning. When employers have responded, it has been more in the spirit of good public relations than from any conviction that such programs are in some fundamental way important. As a result, employers tend to discharge this obligation rather perfunctorily, with superficially designed and sloppily implemented programs. Then they resist improving them because the evidence indicates small pay off from the initial investment.
In contrast, employees seem delighted to get any kind of assistance. When programs are offered, participation is good, dropouts few and requests for additional information voluminous. The programs seem to stimulate planning. Still to be answered is the question of whether concrete planning in the middle years means entering the retirement years prepared with better resources. To date, evaluation research has virtually ignored this facet, focusing almost exclusively on the degree to which retirement preparation programs effectively change attitudes. Ironically, existing programs are better designed to cope with planning objectives than attitude changes, and yet primarily the latter function has been evaluated to the exclusion of the former. It is no wonder the results have been inconclusive and contradictory.
Evaluation research cannot be meaningful if the programs themselves are ineptly designed and implemented. The author suggests a more careful design of retirement preparation programs, including adoption of reasonable, concrete objectives and evaluation studies utilizing rigorous experimental designs. Only then will a fair assessment of the programs effectiveness be possible and only then will employers commit themselves fully to the Idea of helping employees plan for retirement.
