What employer stereotypes regarding older workers have you encountered and how do you educate employers about the positives of hiring mature job seekers?
How do stereotypes develop, and why are they able to persist in the face of contradictory factual evidence?
Myths and stereotypes are sustained when their validity and accuracy remain unchallenged. Here are three common myths that I have encountered in working with hiring managers and teams.
Myth #1 – Mature workers don’t “fit” in an energetic and fast-paced workplace – they can’t keep up and don’t want to work as hard as is required.
Myth #2 – Mature workers are unwilling to share job knowledge and skills as a way of insuring a degree of job security while blocking younger workers from advancing.
Myth #3 – Mature workers are simply far more costly than younger workers and retaining or recruiting them is not a financially sound workforce strategy.
My approach is to educate the hiring manager or team.
Myth #1 – Older workers don’t “fit” in an energetic and fast-paced workplace – they can’t keep up and don’t want to work as hard as is required.
Employment advertisements routinely refer to workplaces that are “fast-paced,” “fresh thinking,” high energy; “vibrant,” “challenging,” and “constantly changing.” The ads evoke an image of people moving about incessantly and working non-stop during ever-longer workdays. Many people believe that the use of such language and imagery is “code” for “older, slower workers need not apply.”
Perhaps we need to reexamine if we are confusing activity and motion with efficiency and results. Continued reliance on the characterization of a workplace as fast-paced and constantly changing is no basis for precluding older job seekers.
Bureau of Labor Statistics data (BLS Work Hours Report) about length of workweek shows no significant difference between the hours worked by younger and older workers. In fact, the length of the average workweek has hovered near 40 to 45 hours for decades. Fast-paced work environments are also nothing new. Before high technology, manufacturing, mining, distribution, construction, transportation and agriculture demanded long and arduous work days.
Laboratory research and employer survey opinion surveys (BC – Center for Retirement Research) indicate that white-collar older workers are seen as “more productive” more than 60% of the time, and “equally productive” about 35% of the time, with only about 6% seen as “less productive” than younger workers.
The results for blue-collar or rank-and-file employees is somewhat less favorable with about 20% classed as “less productive” which is attributed to normal decline in physical strength and stamina.
Key to breaking the myth that mature workers are less productive is to be able to provide evidence of your innate strengths and accomplishments that you bring to your work that provides solutions and solves problems.
For workforce professionals, we need to challenge to “appearance of productivity” – does all the “tweeting” translate into value to the business? Does high activity actually translate into productivity? My approach is that the most productive teams are generationally balanced – the mature worker brings experience to mentor and train younger workers. More on this topic will be discussed in future articles on this subject.
This was the introductory question, more strategies and approaches will be offered in the following articles related to this discussion.
