Partial cure to Baumol's Disease
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February 5, 2001
Page One Feature
Bonne Bell Retires Stereotypes
With Seniors-Only Department
By CLARE ANSBERRY
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
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LAKEWOOD, Ohio -- By noon, the women of Line 2 have packed and boxed 10,800 tubes of Bonne Bell's swirled Lip Shake, a liquid lipstick popular among teenage girls who want their lips to both glisten and taste like whipped vanilla cream.
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Anything over 10,000 is considered very good, and Ann Schnably, her white hair pulled back smartly in a knot on the top of her head, wonders aloud whether the afternoon shift "will be able to top this."
They gather purses and sweaters and say their goodbyes. One woman grabs her cane.
The average age of the 86 assembly line workers in this department is 70. The oldest just turned 90. Their boss, Jess Bell, is 76 years old and is the son of the founder of this $100 million family-owned cosmetics firm based in a working-class neighborhood outside Cleveland.
Mr. Bell launched this seniors-only production department here four years ago, not as a grand social experiment but as a practical business move. The company needed workers. Seniors were available.
Retirees now account for close to 20% of Bonne Bell's work force of 500. The group handles work that was once outsourced, saving the company more than $1 million since it was launched and effectively silencing skeptics who thought running a department with septuagenarians was ridiculous. Shipment goals are set and met. Turnover is almost nil.
Mr. Bell's own father, Jesse Grover Bell, was 80 when he quit working and only then, says his son, because he died. The senior Mr. Bell was a Kansas cosmetics and hosiery salesman who came to Lakewood and began selling Ten-O-Six, a skin cleanser named after the office number of the chemist who concocted it. The clear brown, slightly sweet- and slightly antiseptic-smelling liquid was mixed in huge 8,000-gallon tanks. It became the trusted companion of successive generations of blemish-anxious teens. Its popularity launched and anchored the company named after his eldest daughter.
Bonne Bell grew steadily and surged with the introduction of flavored lip gloss. That strawberry Lip Smacker was followed by 33 other flavors and inspired a full line of products. The company had a plant in Canada and sales world-wide.
But five years ago, in a cost-cutting move, it closed its Canadian operations. Orders were still strong and with the extra Canadian workload and the tight job market, the company was desperate for extra hands. Several temporary agencies supplied workers, but on the whole they were unreliable. Mr. Bell and his wife, Julie, pitched in on weekends, feeding Lip Smackers into boxes. To help with the holiday rush that year, Bonne Bell retirees were asked to help out, and they did with relish and skill.
Mr. Bell had an epiphany. Why not create an entire production department of older workers? The notion was based in part on numbers: the convergence of low unemployment and a large -- and growing -- population of older adults. But it was also rooted in instinct. He knows that segregation on any level involves trade-offs and that lives can be enriched by intergenerational exchanges. Older workers can offer younger ones perspective gained from experience and younger workers can offer their elders a bridge to new technologies and what is, at times, an unfathomable culture.
But Mr. Bell discovered something working with people who were younger and faster than he was. He didn't like it. He felt self-conscious about his own ability to keep up.
He has spent 52 years in the cosmetics industry, which is all about youth and looking good. He walks a few miles to work or spends part of the morning in the company's exercise room. Still, he turned 76 last month, and aging, in a youth-oriented culture, isn't easy for anyone. He is competitive by nature. If he is going to compete, he wants to do so on his own level. He figured others would want the same. Besides, when you are 60-plus, you don't necessarily want to listen to the conversations of 20-year-olds, let alone to their music.
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Workers on Line 2 in Bonne Bell's seniors-only department package the company's Lip Smackers. Clockwise from left -- Manaced Baez, Josie Kothera, Christian Miller, Julian Inglefield and Margaret Thomas
During morning shift, Frank Sinatra serenades Line 3, courtesy of 850 WRMR-AM, easy-listening music of the 1940s and '50s. Juliana Carlton, 65 and the mother of 11 grown children, is in charge of eight workers who insert glittery cheek gel, nail polish, a keychain and a Lip Smacker into a tiny plastic purse. Mrs. Carlton checks her work order to see how many boxes are needed. She keeps count during the shift to make sure they meet their quota. It's not hard work, she says, but it's precise, which she likes. That and the fact that she works with her peers.
Mrs. Carlton has little interest in working with younger people. "I raised my kids. It's my turn to be with people my own age group. We can talk to each other. We don't have to compete," she says. If someone is sick she fills in. She moves people to easier tasks if they wake up one morning with stiff joints. "I know what arthritis feels like," she says.
Connie Bowen, a neighbor of Mrs. Carlton's, stands toward the front of the line because she's fast and keeps a steady stream of product coming down the conveyor belt. Mrs. Bowen worked for years at International Business Machines Corp. punching data into cards, then feeding cards into computers. For a long time, the company trained her when new machines came out, but then it didn't bother.
"Why train me when younger kids coming out of college already knew it? My time came. I was aged out. It happens to everyone in the computer world," she says matter-of-factly. "When new machines come out, they retrain or replace."
Not every type of work is suited for older workers, but Mr. Bell believed it could work at Bonne Bell -- though it would require a different approach and mindset. He didn't know of any other company that had a senior department. In general, there are few options or opportunities for older people who want or need to continue working and not just because of mandatory-retirement policies. Older workers are largely dismissed as too slow and costly or as misfits in a world gaga for the latest technology. He found that out when he floated his idea by the people in charge of manufacturing and packaging. They balked. They said older people would be inefficient; they worried they'd complain they couldn't do the work or that they needed breaks or weren't feeling well. "I just refused to accept any of that," he says. "Let's try it and see if it works," he proposed.
He began conservatively, taking three older packaging machines and two conveyor belts out of storage. He didn't want to invest a lot of new equipment until he was sure it would work. More importantly, the machines were slower. If they went too fast, people would become frustrated and leave. Word went out to senior-citizens centers and churches. Sixteen people were hired to work part-time on four-hour shifts.
There are now close to 50 retirees on each shift. There is a waiting list of 10 -- notable in an economy which, even as it weakens, still enjoys low unemployment, especially for this type of assembly work. Most workers here are women, many of them widows, although there are four men. Pay starts at $7.50, more than a dollar above minimum wage, and moves to $8 an hour after a year. They get 72 hours of paid time off and $50 worth of free products a month, bonuses usually reserved for full-timers. There are no health benefits, which helps keep costs down. Most of the workers are covered by their husbands' medical plans or Medicare and say they don't need extra coverage.
Word of Mouth
Referrals are generally word of mouth, which means people like it enough that they tell people they care about. That, in turn, creates a more familial group. Six members of the St. Clement's bowling league work here. Mrs. Carlton recruited her neighbor and her son's mother-in-law. Hilda Metzgar told her hairdresser, Duane, at Alternatives Hair Design, who passed the word to Evelyn Cicehri.
Mrs. Cicehri had been out of work for seven weeks before she applied for a job. She was 87 at the time. When Mr. Bell heard about her application, he thought, "Oh My God. What are we getting ourselves into?" and rushed from his office to meet her. This isn't a sitting job, Mr. Bell informed her. She didn't need a chair and preferred to stand, she replied.
She told him that she owned a custom-drapery company for 40 years and made drapes for his older sister, Bonne. She sold the business in 1987 and worked 10 years for the new owner but left with a few others when the owner started screaming and slamming his ruler on the desk in front of her. "He was trying to get rid of all the old people," she suspects.
She got the job and has been there since. She turned 90 in August. She drives to work and arrives a half hour early to get a parking space and walk on the tread mill in the employee weight room. She looks 20 years younger than she is, although that would make her about the same age as her two sons, who are both in their 70s and retired.
Mrs. Cicehri works on Line 2, scooping up Lip Shakes as they tumble out of the machine that seals them into a package ready to be displayed in stores. She inserts four in each small cardboard box. If it's slow, she labels the boxes or moves over to Mrs. Carlton's line to help out. She isn't here for the money, although it comes in handy for concerts and gambling trips. She plays pinochle and poker nine times a month. More important is the daily routine the job provides. Her husband died 20 years ago. "If I stayed at home, I wouldn't get dressed until noon," she says. "I like to lead a more structured life."
They all have their own reasons for working into their seventh decade and beyond. About half need the $300 biweekly paycheck to pay bills. Nearly six in 10 workers in the private sector reach retirement age without a defined-benefit pension from their lifelong work, the Labor Department reports. That leaves them largely dependent on Social Security, which on average covers two-thirds of an older middle-class person's needs.
Taking Care of Mother
Judy Lavelle receives a monthly pension of about $2,000 from her years as a teacher in the Cleveland Public School system. That takes care of her mortgage, car payments and insurance. Her Bonne Bell check pays for food and clothing, and gives her a chance to go out to lunch or dinner.
Ms. Lavelle also takes care of her 97-year-old mother. Her mother has dementia and is undergoing radiation treatment for cancer. "The strain right now with her is horrendous," she says. Ms. Lavelle was so exhausted one morning that she had to take a personal day. When she got to work, people asked her how she was, having cared for their own parents or spouses and knowing the stress. "I am so glad to get back here today," she told them.
For others, the job represents a sense of connection and self-esteem. Most are mothers who are still a part of their grown children's lives but not as integral as they were. "Instead of sitting around, I wanted to do something with my life," says Mrs. Carlton. She wasn't talking about hobbies or volunteering because for better or worse, those pursuits don't seem as important or productive. When the phone rings, she answers with some propriety, "Bonne Bell Seniors."
One recent Christmas, she and others sent a Christmas card to Mr. and Mrs. Bell. It read, "Thanks for allowing us to do something useful." He was struck by the message and the implication that older people would feel so obsolete that they would be grateful for assembly-line work.
Mr. Bell doesn't get involved in the department's day-to-day operations. That is left to Bob Wotsch, 53, a man Mr. Bell tapped as much for his ability as his even temperament. Mr. Wotsch had been working for Bonne Bell for more than 30 years at the manufacturing operations, had 100 people reporting to him, and was involved in the actual production of the cosmetics, which he loved. When Mr. Bell asked him to manage the senior division, he was torn. "I didn't know if it would be enough for me," he says. But out of respect for Mr. Bell, he agreed.
Mr. Bell gave him one instruction. "Treat them like brothers and sisters or mothers and fathers. I don't want you to yell. Just tell people what to do and they will do it," he said. Some workers might take advantage of that. But Mr. Wotsch says he hasn't had that problem and attributes it to their generation's loyalty and work ethic. "They don't want or need anyone to tell them to get going," he says. "Besides I don't think you get the most out of people by yelling at them. You need mutual respect." The contentious issues involve someone not getting a parking space or missing a chair. "I get complaints like 'She took my chair' and then I act as the disciplinarian," he says. But no one has left over a disagreement.
The personal issues are more complex. "You get very involved because it is such a close department," he says. On a recent day, one worker had pneumonia. The week before, someone was off for prostate surgery. The daughter of another called to say her mother's blood pressure was up and she was taking her to the hospital.
He is concerned about them and calls to see how doctor's appointments went. One woman said she had to quit because her daughter lost her babysitter and she needed to stay home to take care of the grandchildren. "I said, 'Don't quit. Just take a leave of absence,' " he says. "Another's husband has Alzheimer's. She might call and say, 'He's not acting right. I can't handle him today.' I say, 'Take the day off.' "
Mr. Bell's son Jess Jr. is now CEO and leads a team of executives in their 40s expanding the reach and scope of Bonne Bell products. "They're a new breed, computer literate and most with MBAs," says the senior Mr. Bell.
His son doesn't see the senior department as a temporary experiment, but rather a part of a company where family has always been important. Mrs. Bell runs a retail shop here. Jess Jr.'s wife, Hilary, handles brand development. In the summer, when children are out of school, their parents bring them to work.
Mr. Bell's younger son James, a senior vice president, is inquiring about space to expand the seniors-only department. The senior Mr. Bell is looking at faster new machinery, convinced the workers can handle it. He's also investigating new pneumatic chairs for those who recently had knee surgery. He asked the 90-year-old Mrs. Cicheri to keep working until she was 100. "I will, if you will," she told him.
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