Art of Aging: Hiring seniors for work

BLUE BELL, Pa. (WPVI) -- Older adults can sometimes find it difficult to find a job. But, a local entrepreneur is putting special focus on hiring seniors.

Claudia Timbo is the Founder and President of Company Voice.

Timbo's 5th and most recent start up is a call center in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania that employs 300 people, and she says hiring seniors just makes good business sense.

"In the call center industry there's a lot of turnover, and our model helped reduce the turn over," she said.

Since seniors are more likely to stay on the job, Timbo says retraining costs are drastically reduced, and more mature workers bring a lot of talent to the table.

"We can tap into their prior experience, life experience, and try to match it with the clients' needs. So like, if I have someone who had 30 years of engineering, I can maybe tap him into an engineering firm and it's a win for both parties," stated Timbo.

She also hires people with disabilities, veterans and professionals who are in transition like mothers returning to the workforce after raising their families.

Genevieve Bongart, a Controller & Shareholder of Company Voice said, "It works because the mature worker comes in and they work. And the veteran comes in and is happy to have a job."

Timbo added, "They don't want to be a president tomorrow, they don't want to be a manager, and they've done that. So they're here to put in an honest day's work and really want to see success for the client."

Timbo has earned grants to create jobs from the state of Pennsylvania, and her staffing model won her the Department of Aging's 2014 Champion of Older Workers Award.

Manage Edward Sotak of Company Voice said, "Certainly over my career, it seems the more tenure you get in an organization the less value you are to them. Here, Claudia recognizes the value of having that.

Bob Klein, an Agent at Company Voice said, "We've been around the world. We've had, we're educated and I have a master's degree and half of a doctorate. We can we can talk any type of language.

For Timbo, hiring seasoned employees, provides her with a reliable and flexible workforce.

As for the seniors, Sotak says, "It's really, having a job where I can feel like I'm contributing, and still active for me. But, at the end of the day, what's important is working with the family, my four grandchildren that I love, Chelsey, Logan, Griffin, and Grayson, Pop-pop said hi."