Hire Consultants, hire senior citizens, post-retirement jobs
In today’s rapidly evolving marketplace, more focus is being given to adaptability, creativity, and innovation. One of the best ways to ensure exponential and holistic growth is to have a diverse workforce. A diverse workforce ensures enhanced creativity and innovation, access to a bigger talent pool and better market understanding, among other things.
As a DEI strategy, most companies focus on gender, race, and ethnic diversity, and rightfully so. Having said that, age diversity is also a very important part of DEI which unfortunately gets overlooked by many organisations. Professor Ashley Martin, lead author of a 2021 research paper from Stanford Graduate School of Business highlights that “ageism is oftentimes a bias that doesn’t even get discussed in this landscape of inequality.” This article will speak about what age discrimination in the workplace looks like and highlight the benefits of having an age diverse workforce.
What is age discrimination?
It is the practice of considering age as a factor for deciding who receives a new job, gets a promotion, or gets other job benefits. This age discrimination may not be limited to any one age group, it can occur against freshers and seniors alike. “According to a new study, 10.3% of over 60s in India felt they had suffered age discrimination.” It is important that recruiters make decisions based on the knowledge and skills that retirees have to offer, rather than dynamic factors like age.
The average age of retirement in India is between 58-62 years. However, this may not do justice to the experiences of the senior workforce that is forced to retire at its prime. When there is no age limit for learning, why is there a limit for working?
In this changing market landscape, it is imperative that recruiters understand the importance of having a multigenerational workforce. Following are the reasons for having an age-diverse workforce:
- Decades of Expertise and Experience
Retirees have worked through decades of change, the IT and technology boom, and the turn of the century, to name just a few things. This extensive experience and expertise can be massively leveraged by companies for their growth. Retired professionals can help organisations avoid mistakes that they have experienced in the past, and provide creative, educated solutions to unique problems.
- Address the Skill Gap in the Job Market
The world today is suffering from a major skill gap in the talent market, which can be plugged with the skills that retirees have to offer. The hiring and talent acquisition teams in companies need to step away from the traditional hiring methods and capitalise on the treasure trove of talent that is retired professionals. They can streamline processes and SOPs in the company and increase the efficiency of their team.
- Mentoring
With the depth of knowledge that retirees have accumulated over the years, they are in a good position to pass on their learnings to the younger generations. Retirees can also be used to mentor the leadership and groom them in their roles. Colleagues can learn from their discipline, work ethic, and unique perspective, by virtue of sheer proximity.
- Reliability
The motivations of a retired person wanting to work is very different from the younger generations. The working generations are more focused on building a good career and doing well, financially and socially. Whereas retirees are motivated by wanting to remain intellectually engaged, and giving back to society.. Employers don’t have to worry about managing their careers, and can expect a higher degree of reliability and job-loyalty from them.
- Fill temporary vacancies
Companies often face temporary vacancies due to maternity leaves, attrition, downsizing, seasonal increase in projects etc. Hiring people traditionally can be a harrowing job with a long turnaround time for just a few months of engagement. More often than not, this burden can fall on the other employees of the company, making them less efficient for the work they are hired to do. Companies can hire consultants in the form of retirees who prove to be a better solution in these cases. They may prefer doing part-time or project based work, which aligns well with these temporary vacancies. Since they don’t have any notice period to serve, they are also available to work immediately. This proves to be a budget friendly option as well.
- Problem Solving Attitude
Due to their experiences, adaptability and resilience, retirees have an innate critical thinking and problem solving attitude. They bring new perspectives to the table which acts as a catalyst for others to think out of the box too.
- Improved Team Spirit
Having worked for decades, most retirees have figured out a good work-life balance. They can showcase the importance of maintaining an equilibrium and focusing on one’s health and life, to avoid burnout. Their experiences can encourage and motivate people to work harder, while doing so more efficiently.
Conclusion:
The changing marketplace is giving way to post-retirement jobs for people who want to continue with their professional life and start an encore career. Aptitude to work and skill sets should be taken into account when hiring people, and not their age. When companies hire senior citizens, the entire workforce benefits from their experience, perspective and work ethic. Making people aware about age discrimination and the subtle changes they can make to be more inclusive and respectful towards a multigenerational workforce is key to a flourishing work environment. WisdomCircle has seen the positive impact that retirees have had in the growth of the organisation and the workforce alike. The myriad of success stories are testament to how recruiters have leveraged the experience and skills of retirees to solve for unique challenges they face.
