With all the focus on millennial workers, older workers have often been resigned to mentor roles or being pushed out of the workforce altogether. Rather than offering their experience and skills to other industries, many older workers are stuck in the same job hoping to make it to retirement. For companies who recognize the immense value of older workers, targeting these candidates could be a play a pivotal role in their HR strategy. Learn how you can optimize your business' HR strategy around older workers.
Use Older Workers to Expand Your Network
One often overlooked benefit of older workers is their extensive professional network. Older workers have often been in their industry for decades and have a solid professional network of other professionals and resources in that industry. They've been to conferences, attended educational opportunities, and talked to their counterparts who work for your competitors. This makes them a wealth of information not only for optimizing workflow and keeping on the cutting edge of industry news, but also for finding new candidates for job openings. Older workers can help your HR strategy by providing networking opportunities that can help you employ the best in that industry.
Gain More Experience
It's harder than ever for older workers to find employment. Age discrimination is alive and well in the workforce and many employers shy away from older workers fearing retirement, increased insurance costs, and health issues. In actuality, older workers provide the added benefit of not only being pros in their industry but decades of leadership. Employers who keep an open mind to hiring older workers can gain an employee who can bring a vast wealth of experience to the job and who may actually stay in the position longer than a younger worker.
Cultivate Loyalty with Older Workers
Today's younger generation simply doesn't believe in company loyalty. They grew up in a job market that was hesitant to hire them and then quick to fire them. The only raises they obtained were jumping from job to job so that mentality has ingrained itself in the Generation X and Y workers. Older generations of workers understand their value to the company and have maintained loyalty to the companies they work for. Hiring and maintaining a staff of older workers means harnessing that loyalty and, in turn, those employees can cultivate that loyalty in younger workers. One HR strategy that companies can employ when hiring and maintaining older workers is cultivating and encouraging their innate sense of loyalty.
Increase Cooperation
It's not just experience that older workers possess; it's a lifetime of problem-solving skills and teamwork. Older workers have spent their career working with a variety of people in a variety of places at a variety of times. From that experience, they are able to work professionally in any situation. In today's workplace, that experience is vital to working within the business and outside of it. Employing both younger and older employees helps younger employees to learn from the decades of experience possessed by older employees and reduces workplace conflict overall.
While other workplaces chase older workers away, companies who understand the value of older workers and integrate their benefits into their HR strategy can win big. Recognize the significant value that older workers can bring to your business in the form of networking, loyalty, and workplace satisfaction and build your HR strategy off the backs of these highly experienced workers.
