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Two new surveys show that private employers are being very subtle about their plans offer incentives to retain older employees – much to the disappointment of retirees who would have liked to know about them.

The lesson to be learned, said Allen Steinberg, a principal and senior design consultant at Hewitt Associates, is that “you’re going to lose good people if they don’t know about the availability of a program” designed to interest them in working longer.

That’s good advice for nonprofit organizations, too, which are scrambling to figure out ways to retain experienced workers before an anticipated wave of boomer retirements.

A survey by Hewitt Associates released in late July found that 61 percent of the 140 mid- to large-size employers polled have developed or plan to create a special program to retain, targeted near-retirement employees. But very few – only 5 percent – have formalized those programs.

Instead, said Steinberg, “organizations have been much more comfortable identifying the one, two or three individuals they are really eager to keep, wrapping an arm around their shoulder and saying, ‘What’s it going to take to keep you?’”

Earlier last month, the Employee Benefits Research Institute reported on a survey of 5,722 employees that found 61 percent might be induced to delay retirement if they were offered flexible hours, more pay or other incentives. Yet only 26 percent said they have been approached by their employers to stay longer.

Steinberg said the one-on-one approach of buttonholing an employee is starting to lose its effectiveness. In the next three to five years, he noted, “The demographics are telegraphing that a lot more boomers are going to move into their late 50s and are going to think about leaving.”

He said companies would be wise to set up formal retention programs now that make the incentives clear, and they shouldn’t do so in a vacuum. “They need to ask the employees what it will take to get them to stay, rather than having some H.R. person sitting alone in a room trying to figure it out,” he advised.