That translates into the need for two things to take place that aren’t currently happening. The first will require financial professionals to break a cardinal rule: Touching retirement assets before full-time retirement or age 59 ½. Even mentioning it feels sacrilegious, which is why it’s so important for advisors and clients to start being open to new ideas and approaches to meeting both their personal and financial needs during these bonus years.
As an industry, we have to stop medicating people to believe that if anyone touches their assets for any other reason than getting old, they will end up homeless or totally dependent on their family or the government. Retirement plans need to start becoming more fluid and flexible. They should have room for people to step outside the box and be more and do more now.
Furthermore, advisors need to start having these new conversations, especially with boomer clients because they can feel something moving inside of them, but they can’t make total sense of the thoughts and desires. Many are worn-out from years of the corporate grind and don’t feel the connection between their job and the people it impacts outside their office walls or company grounds. They’re shifting their focus from accumulating a giant nest egg to a desire to be part of something bigger and better—to have a positive effect on others—and don’t necessarily want to retire from work, rather they just want to work in the right situation and retirement. So, they need permission and support to turn those thoughts and feelings into actions.
Along those same lines, clients are also going to be looking for, and eventually demanding, the same flexibility at work. Clients want and need career counseling that helps them strike a balance between this renewed sense of being more at retirement age without jeopardizing the many benefits that employment actually provides. More and more people will be seeking work roles that offer purpose, income and time away to honor things like family, friends, spirituality, physical health and emotional well-being. In other words, the new era of retirement will be defined by freedom in the workplace, rather than freedom from it.
Consequently, organizations both big and small need to accept the responsibility for helping employees prepare for more than the financial aspects of retirement. This emerging corporate responsibility requires that they adjust their compartmentalized view of retirement as an isolated financial event that implies that life in retirement will be better than work life if they have the right investment asset allocation and enough money saved.