There Is No Skills Shortage – Just Look To The 50+ Generation

Last Sunday, I had a moment that perfectly captures National Older Workers’ Week.

I was at Marks & Spencer to sort out some travel currency. I guessed the experienced woman serving me might be from the 50+ generation – the undervalued group of employees behind this week’s campaign.

Pauline said yes, she was 70 years old and her colleague Nicki nearly the same. As I rudely quizzed them, they proudly said they had worked there for 20 years, always turned up on time, were rarely sick and they love their jobs.

Two 70-year old women working should not be news – but it is. There are one million people aged 50 to 64 who want to work yet cannot get jobs, despite there being 831,000 vacancies this year in the UK alone.

My M+S experience continued with a stuck zip on a new pair of jeans. Sandra in customer service—a similarly experienced team member—apologised that policies wouldn’t allow for the refund I wanted, but Sandra used her initiative. “Get the zip fixed, bring us the receipt, and we’ll refund it,” she told me. Problem solved, frustration turned to satisfaction.

And for anyone worried about ‘older’ employees and ‘tech’, Pauline sorted my currency on the system in seconds – frustrated that the system was slower than she was.

Marks & Spencer saved my day, but they also showed how experience, dedication, people skills and problem-solving abilities of older employees translate into real results.

The Untapped Potential of Older Workers

Politicians and business leaders have been bemoaning the ‘skills shortage crisis’ for some years with Jeremy Hunt, former Chancellor, famously urging the 50+ generation to get off the golf course and back to work. Completely missing that they would love nothing more if we could only solve the employer problem.

Let’s be clear. THERE IS NO SKILLS SHORTAGE.
There are more fit and healthy people available to fill current vacancies than there are vacancies. So, what has happened?

The biggest issue is that ageism is the last acceptable form of discrimination. I do a lot of public speaking on this topic and have heard a major corporate leader openly refer to their 50+ generation as ‘permafrost’. At a roundtable discussion, an HR director proudly said he dismisses any CV if a candidate has worked for one organisation for 20 or 30 years.

There have not been enough advocates for the experienced generation so myths go unchallenged. According to UK Hospitality, older employees are HALF as likely to take sick days compared to younger; only a quarter of 50+ took time off in 2014 due to ill health compared to under half of 20-30s. Nearly all (91%) of older workers want to progress in their careers still and there are hundreds of examples of 60 and 70-year olds successfully retraining into digital, data and AI jobs, their experience bringing considerable value-add.

What should employers do?

Check recruitment for biases, you may be surprised how much conscious and unconscious bias is built into AI recruiting systems
Focus on intergenerational working – utilising the strengths of all generations, not allowing silos. This is not about either/or of the generations – the most profitable and innovative organisations are multi-generational
Age should be a pillar of diversity – measure retention, recruitment, redundancy and engagement by age
Change the language – not even ‘we want to recruit 50 and 60 year olds’ but instead ‘people from their 50s to 100s’. Increasing numbers are working past their centenary
Look at apprenticeships to retrain older employees in digital, data and AI and make sure the trainers build on existing experience in the training.

We recently launched a platform, Rethink Retirement, to help 50+ employees plan their longer term futures. Piloted with 300 employees at a major bank, HR directors told us this was the first benefit specifically for this generation. The majority of benefits focus on younger employees such as childcare, freezing eggs and paternity leave with the only older employee benefits being ‘menopause and impotency support’.

It also turned out that managers are worried about “age-related conversations” so let people retire without ever discussing alternative ways of working, such as part-time, seasonal working to cover holiday and maternity leave or reskilling to fill vacancies in tech teams.

Open up the opportunities and people will come – Fullers is focused on recruiting this generation, alongside others. Dawn Browne, people and talent director at Fuller’s Brewery, said: “Older workers have a lot to offer us – and we have a lot to offer them, with shift lengths and work patterns to suit. We are very much a people business, and the older generation bring an exceptional level of customer service and consumer interaction.”
Of all the challenges facing businesses in these difficult times, the skills crisis – or what should be seen as an opportunity – has to be the easiest to solve?

Let’s move beyond dated stereotypes and start building workplaces where every generation can thrive. When experience meets opportunity, everyone wins.

Victoria Tomlinson

Victoria Tomlinson, is ceo of award-winning Next-Up and a campaigning voice for 50+ employees. They run pre-retirement workshops for partners in professional firms and have a free Forum to share best practice on retirement (what to do rather than financial focus). Victoria became a tech entrepreneur at the age of 67, launching their platform Rethink Retirement for all employees. A former director of EY, she is on the board of WILD Digital to increase the diversity of tech teams.