Robert De Niro may have changed the way Sun Life Financial Inc. looks at its intern program.
“One rainy day a few months ago, I watched the movie [The Intern],” says Isabelle Hudon, senior vice-president of client solutions at Sun Life. In the film, senior citizen Ben, played by De Niro, cuts short his retirement to head back to work as an intern at an Internet-based clothing company.
“It’s a fun and light movie, but still behind the scenes, there’s a few things that are true to our reality today,” says Hudon. “And I look at my dad. My dad is 75, in top shape and he has a lot still to offer. But he’s fully retired and he’s not necessarily contributing anymore to the economy and to his community. And it makes me sad, because there’s a lot that he could give back and share with younger generations.”
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With those thoughts in mind, Hudon went out and hired Sun Life’s first senior intern, 75-year-old George Graham, who retired from the company in 2003. Since taking on the position in the spring, Graham has been helping retirement consultants communicate better with pre-retiree and retiree clients.
“He can help on better scripting with the right vocabulary, the right information and the right lineup,” says Hudon. “We know it’s highly emotional having those kinds of conversations. It can feel highly complex to listen to any advice or information sharing from experts in the financial sector.”
As a retiree himself, Graham helps humanize Sun Life’s retiree clients to the consultants.
“I think that simply being here raises the retirement consultants’ perspective on dealing with a retiree,” says Graham, whose roles included working as an employment recruiter and consultant during his earlier stint at Sun Life. “I think they see a guy who struggles with computers, so they recognize that on the other end of the phone, a client may be struggling. They see somebody that doesn’t have the full range of understanding about pensions and so they understand that a client may be in that same position. I think that’s the main contribution.”
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While there have been some challenges — such as catching up on “all things pension-related” and getting used to technology and security advances — Graham says he’s getting a lot out of the internship.
“You know, when you retire, you instantly lose your connection to all of your colleagues on a day-to-day basis, so being back at work has been a real joy to me on that standpoint,” he says.
While volunteering can be fulfilling, Graham says working at Sun Life “creates a tremendous focus” for him. “Dealing with clients who are struggling with [their] pension, how their arrangements might be, all the taxation issues, it’s very important that this role be handled well,” he says.
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The part-time, paid internship is flexible. There’s no set end date and Graham is looking at other positions with Sun Life’s product and marketing teams so both parties can create a role that works best.
“We did not want to scare George at the beginning by offering him a full-time job,” says Hudon, who notes the human resources team “needed to go outside the box” in setting up the position. “I told my team, ‘Let’s start from scratch. Not that George will rule the world, but we will invent something together.”
In the future, Hudon hopes to expand the senior intern model to other business units at Sun Life, although she’s not yet sure where the best fits will be. And Sun Life retirees may get first dibs on the internships.
“I would not be closed to a broader search but I do believe Sun Life retirees, when they’re brought back to the organization, the learning curve on who is Sun Life, the culture, it’s easier,” she says.