Retired? Congratulations. Now, it’s time to get back to work
Driven by new job portals, seniors are finding flexible and fractional roles that fit their expertise
Ketaki.Desai@timesofindia.com 25.08.2025
As retirement age approached, Mussarat Hussain began to weigh his options: should he get into teaching, pursue the PhD he had long wanted or continue working in a part-time advisory capacity? One option that didn’t even make it to the list was full retirement. “I am not the type of guy who will hang up his boots. I’m from Ranchi, the city of Dhoni so I tell people that my Test match may be over, but I am still playing one-day matches,” says the HR professional who spent the bulk of his career at Maruti Suzuki and is now heading HR at Suzuki’s newest venture.
He also teaches on weekends, is pursuing a PhD and has completed a myriad of courses. “And now I’m telling people, ‘Don’t worry, I still have T20 left after this’,” says the 62-year-old. As lifespans and health spans increase, older professionals are no longer willing to call it quits at 58 or 60. A recent survey by consulting firm Dalberg and The Wisdom Circle, a job portal for seniors, found that 70% of adults aged 50– 75+ are either working or exploring opportunities: 15% full-time, 17% part-time and 36% exploring. Even among those 75+, two-thirds are still seeking opportunities. For many, purpose and stimulation matter, but money does too — 52% of pensioners cited financial reasons for continuing work. Swetha Totapally, regional director at Dalberg Asia Pacific, says, “We wanted to start a conversation — one that sees aging as an opportunity rather than a time of decline.” Organisations too are realising the value of senior talent, says Rajneesh Singh, managing partner of Simply HR.
“There are many discussions happening, from extending the retirement age to finding different ways to engage employees,” says Singh. One way is through tractional roles, where seasoned talent share expertise on a part-time or interim basis. Niharika Kabra, marketing lead of The Wisdom Circle, says over 1 lakh seniors and 1,200 organisations have signed up on their platform. “Traditional hiring mindsets need to be rewired. There was a time when we had to encourage companies to consider these talent pools. But we now see a lot of openness to hire older folks,” she adds. An international model inspired Anil Kumar Siddu to launch job aggregator SeniorExperts.
He says, “Germany has a platform called the Senior Expert Service where 25,000 senior professionals in different fields are available for hire. I started thinking: Why do we not have such a service in India for those who are ‘retired but not tired’?” Helmed by IIT grads, SeniorExperts, which has 18,000 registrations thus far, recently connected a Telangana-based company bidding for a civil engineering project in Nagpur with an expert who worked largely from home, earning about Rs 1 lakh a month. Sunil Ranjhan, who led HR at MNCs including LG, the second innings at an Indian startup has been a markedly different experience. “This phase, I find, is more of a serene existence. You start enjoying your work in a very free mental space without insecurities and without feeling like you’re running some kind of race against others,” says Ranjhan who officially retired at 58. Others treat him differently, too.
“Younger people feel more secure coming up to me for advice. You’re seen as someone who has seen it all, who won’t play dirty,” he says. It’s a win-win for companies too. “If they were to hire someone from what we call grade A organisations, they would have to shell out big money. But people like me are not looking for money. So, they get know-how and people who have seen the ups and downs of business.” Of course, not everyone is working post-retirement for the love of it. “Those in support roles really need the cash. They’re looking for financial stability to take care of their medical needs without relying on their children,” says Ranjhan, adding that he knows support staff members who work at call centres or enter the gig economy post-retirement. Some are helping older folks reskill or use their skills in more marketable ways. Preventive care company 60 Plus Global has launched 60 Plus Velai, which connects seniors in south India to part-time, remote or consulting jobs. “There was a lady who spent 40 years as a stenographer and typed in Tamil for her job.
We placed her in a data entry job which she can do from home,” says founder Arasi Arul. Arul, a serial entrepreneur, hires seniors for her own startups too. “The quality of freshers is very poor. They need to use Grammarly or ChatGPT to get one line in English. The beauty of these seniors is they have amazing vocabulary; they often know more than two languages and can do math without a calculator or write without spelling mistakes,” she says, recalling a young woman who refused to come to work because the salon didn’t get her eyebrows right. “Last year, I had 15 youngsters working for me, but now four senior citizens who work from home do the same job. They get it done by 10am too, because they all wake up at 5-6am.”
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