The Power of the Older Worker
Older workers often face discrimination in the workplace from hiring managers who think they won’t fit in with the culture or don’t have the modern skills needed to do the job right and do the job quickly.
Learning is a lifelong endeavor. Regardless of age, we all must keep our skills current as we venture into the future together.
Despite misperceptions to the contrary, older workers are just as capable as any other age group in learning new skills and the cost for retraining is often lower since experienced workers have previous skills to build on.
Older workers bring a wealth of additional value to the workplace.
- They have institutional knowledge.
- They have experience problem solving.
- They tend to stay with employers twice as long as younger workers.
- They have stronger interpersonal skills which help create a more cohesive workforce.
- They are more reliable, generally using fewer sick days.
- They are less likely to have workplace accidents.
The proof of the power of the older worker is in the numbers.
Multigenerational teams with a “wide” age range of 25 years or more from youngest to oldest team members met or exceeded expectations 73% of the time.
Meanwhile, teams with a “narrow” range of less than ten years did so only 35% of the time.