Why you should think seriously about the ageing workforce
One really important reason why you should think seriously about the ageing workforce and half a dozen ways you can gain if you do!
Reason #1. You. You’ll be an older worker one day, assuming that things continue as they are, i.e. that you don’t win lotto and retire early or come to a sticky end through some other twist of fate. As much as we try to ignore it we’re all getting older and before you know it you’ll be one of those directly affected by this phenomenon. So how will you feel about it?
As an HR professional I’m assuming you have an open mind already and recognise the value that older workers bring to an organisation – things like experience, wisdom, patience, understanding, knowledge, well-honed skills, reliability, loyalty, stability etc – so you shouldn’t have too much difficulty selling the concept to your organisation of providing meaningful employment for those whose birthdates have come ahead of yours. By the time you yourself reach the level of physical maturity where realisation has set in that you’re no longer the young person with your whole life ahead of you that you thought you were, you’d probably like to feel a degree of comfort that you can still change jobs or seek promotion without being rejected based on prejudice or ignorance. And probably even more importantly you’ll want to continue doing interesting and challenging work – not be put out to pasture on the boring stuff. A few grey hairs and wrinkles don’t mean you’ve lost your marbles!
Most women in their 40s, 50s and 60s remember how hard women struggled in the 1970s, 80s and 90s to be taken seriously and treated as equals in their workplaces. Stories abound of the ‘glass ceiling’ barriers; of job ads that specified that ‘males only’ need apply; and that the choices of career for women were limited to teaching, nursing, office work, typing and shop assistance. Remember the ads for ‘Girl Fridays’, and when job ads specified ‘men’ or ‘girls’, but never ‘boys’ or ‘women’?
We’ve come a long way since those bleak days in terms of our attitudes to employing women haven’t we? So now we need to concentrate on improving our attitudes to employing ‘older’ workers – whatever constitutes ‘older’.
A very recent survey on engagement, undertaken by Winsborough Ltd, revealed some interesting facts about engagement during (and just after) a recession. Surprise, surprise, older workers are much more likely to be engaged than their younger colleagues – “…Age impacted on engagement. Generation-Y workers were the least engaged and over-60’s were the most engaged. Engagement increased incrementally for those in their 30’s, 40’s and 50’s but was not as high as the oldest employees…” A summary of the survey can be found here.
And now onto ways you can gain from employing an ageing/older worker
Gain # 1. Tap into a wealth of experience that has been collected (and fine tuned) over decades.
Gain # 2. Create a more balanced workplace with a diverse range of ages and maturity. This might also help with your marketing/customer mix.
Gain # 3. Access maturity and wisdom in your decision making from a wider group.
Gain # 4. Manage workflow and labour/skills better. Cover busy times, and reduce staffing in quiet times, by allowing your older employees the flexibility to take time off in chunks (weeks or months) or by working part-time hours or less days each week.
Gain # 5. Benefit from their extensive networks – chances are they’ll have made a lot of potentially useful friends and acquaintances in their working lifetime.
Gain # 6. Use their very efficient English skills – as most came through a very different education system to Gen Xs and Gen Ys they know how to spell, can punctuate and use the right grammar – all of which Microsoft has limited functionality of.
There’s probably many more but I focussed on just the obvious ones to make my point.
One of the old arguments that surfaces about older workers is their inability to keep up with technology. What a load of rubbish! Who created most of it? And if you’re still unsure check out the growth of the grey power websites – I’m told they outstrip Facebook and the other social networks by miles.
Convinced yet? Ageing is going to get us all in the end (it’s already happening actually), so we’d be negligent not to change society’s attitudes before we find we’re labelled with the dreaded ‘older worker’ tag ourselves. And believe me it creeps up really, really fast!
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- WorkFace · Getting older : may have its advantages - [...] over at Beverley Main’s HR blog you can read about six gains that your organisation may make by hiring ...
Oops. I forgot to include where you can find out more. Check out
NZ Retirement Commission http://www.retirement.org.nz
Human Rights Commission http://www.hrc.co.nz
NZ Department of Labour http://www.ers.dol.govt.nz
Equal Employment Opportunities Trust http://www.eeotrust.org.nz
Council of Trade Unions http://www.union.org.nz