The Value of Older Workers
🤔 Quick Exercise: Close your eyes for a minute and picture an older person, 65 or so who is at work. Who do you see? What do you believe about this person? What motivates this person to be working? What value can they add in today’s workforce?
A few experiences this week have focused my attention the value of older workers and ways in which employers, colleagues and even the older workers themselves can benefit from a reframe of their situation.
When I did the visualization exercise above, the negative undertones of my picture surprised me. Does this person have to work because they cannot afford retirement? Is this person able to contribute at a high level, or are they unproductive because they cannot learn new technologies or adapt to fast paced environments? Does their presence on a team lead to intergenerational friction that makes it hard to attract and retain younger employees?
Many of these negative views are being challenged by research. “Redesigning Retirement: It’s time for a new deal between employers and older workers” by Ken Dychtwald, Robert Morison, and Katy Terveer in HBR March – April 2024 outlines some of the myths about older workers and suggests ways in which companies can identify and tap into the value of this segment of the workforce. These approaches require employers to redefine roles and responsibilities to allow older employers to offer their greatest value: their experience. Phased-in retirement, part-time or project related roles, mentorship programs, multi-generational team design, and age-specific flexibility and benefits programs all allow older employees to keep producing, often in unique or hard-to-replace ways.
As a coach, I focus on ways in which we can gain self-awareness of our own beliefs and find ways to shift them to achieve our goals.
To that end, I offer a few questions to ask yourself:
❓ As a leader, have you challenged yourself to look at each person on your team as an individual, and identify the strengths and unique contribution they can make to the business? Have you positioned each person appropriately to maximize that contribution given their strengths, stage of life, personal goals, etc.?
❓As an older person, would you be better off spending your energy to identify, communicate, and lean into your unique strengths rather than chasing the youth on the team and trying to perform the same way they do? If you aren’t in an organization that values these strengths – can you find one that will?
❓For everyone who is working, have you done the work to truly understand what you need from work now, and how your current position is aligned with those needs? Clarity about this question, while often overlooked, is one key to feeling fulfilled and engaged.
If you’re curious about these topics and how coaching can help you learn more, connect with me here or at john@aconnectedcoach.com .