Retirement preparation for blue-collar workers in an industrial setting : an employee assistance programme perspective

Abstract

South Africa is in a state of transition. Political and social change, economic conditions, modernisation and urbanisation, are affecting the position and social conditions of the elderly and eroding their traditional role and care giving structures. More and more people are also forced to take early retirement as a result of restructuring and downsizing in companies. It has become very important that people make provision for their own futures by planning and preparing for retirement, if they want to enjoy quality of life and life satisfaction in retirement. This is especially important for blue-collar workers that form the bottom end of the income spectrum. An absence of retirement preparation programmes that can appropriately address the needs of blue-collar workers, prompted this research. The researcher used an exploratory-descriptive research design to explore blue-collar workers perceptions of retirement, their expectations as well as their level of preparedness. The ultimate goal of the research was to make recommendations for the development of a retirement preparation programme for blue-collar workers. The research was conducted with a sample of blue-collar workers of the Alpha group and included workers from both its urban and rural operations Research findings indicated that blue-collar workers' perceptions of a "happy retiremenf' centre mainly around physiological and security needs such as "to enjoy good health" and having a home and a secure income. Expectations reflected ambivalence between the "old " or "traditional" and the "emerging" or "new'' paradigms. It was concluded that expectations are in most instances not in line with " real life situations" as experienced by the elderly in the country. An exploration of the research subjects' degree of awareness and knowledge of matters that will affect their retirement planning, such as knowledge of Medical Aid rules and benefits, Retirement Fund rules and benefits, savings and investment options and home-ownership, revealed a grim picture. It was therefore concluded that blue-collar workers lack sufficient knowledge to adequately prepare for retirement. It was recommend that retirement preparation should be seen as a block by block building process that should be addressed through out a person's working life. It should form an integral part of all efforts and initiatives at the work-place, aimed at developing, enabling and empowering employees of alllevel