The classical view of the American Dream ends in a traditional retirement. However, a sizeable chasm has developed over the past several years between how employers and employees view the end of one’s working days, one that has caused the vision of the traditional retirement to be clouded with cynicism. According to information extracted from the Transamerica Retirement Center, 54% of employers believe employees would rather have a higher salary instead of exceptional retirement benefits. The downside to their mindset is that only 34% of employees are in agreement with that assessment. Furthermore, roughly three of every four employers feel that their workforce does not like to think about retirement until they are close to calling it a career, while roughly three of every four employees completely disagree with such a line of thought. These disparate mindsets are causing more and more employees to personally squelch any ideas of the kind of retirements enjoyed by generations past, as illustrated by only 25% of workers surveyed by Adecco feel that a traditional retirement is in their future.
It isn’t all that hard to pinpoint where the gap is being generated from. In the wake of more company sponsored, employee automated retirement programs such as employer provided 401(k) programs being more prevalent and accessible over the past two decades, employers may feel less of an obligation to come up with what they may view as a contingency plan for their workforce upon retirement. At the same time, employees are in a new landscape of sorts, where it is no longer a given that the company they work for will provide a pension to them at the end of their career. Consequently, the may not know how to approach their superiors and discuss what benefits could be available to them upon an event that may not happen to them for several years if not decades. Another Transamerica poll supports this wallflower tendency, as only 22% have talked to their supervisor or HR department about retirement benefits over the past twelve months. As a result, employers may think that they are still doing right by their employees, while the workforce may glean a simultaneous feeling of marginalization. Unfortunately, both parties are typically acting on a mutually exclusive basis in this case.
The obvious solution to narrowing the space between the two parties is communication, and it needs to come from the workforce. If an employer implements (or does not implement) a program, and the employees stand idly by rather than voicing any concerns they may have, the employer will have no reason to reconsider what they have done, because they have no outside basis to do so. If people are not talking to their superiors and sharing their concerns regarding their retirement, employers will see no reason to reform their policies. And the disparity between the two parties will continue to remain as wide as it is now, if not grow wider.
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