The American workforce is undergoing an unprecedented transformation. The workforce actually is getting smaller as declining birth rates have reduced the number of younger people available for employment; at the same time, the workforce is getting older. Reaching age 62 or 65 no longer stands as a definitive departure time to leave the workforce for retirement. Some continue working because they need the income, benefits, and opportunity to save more for their eventual retirement. Many others enjoy work as a source of social engagement, personal meaning, and an outlet to share a lifetime accumulation of skills and expertise. As they stay in the workforce past the age of 65, older Americans also are changing the structure of work as they seek opportunities to move from full-time work to part-time roles, seasonal positions, consulting, and entrepreneurship, and they must find ways to balance age-related changes to their own health and physical abilities and assume new personal responsibilities such as caregiving for a parent or partner.
Despite recognizing how the workforce is undergoing such a dramatic change, most employers still rely on an outdated model of managing human resources. Individuals are supposed to complete education and learn a trade early in life, seek steady employment through mid-life, and then make a complete exit from work at retirement. Such an outdated model certainly underlies the widespread challenges employers have expressed with filling positions. They cannot find enough younger workers to fill open positions, and they continue to encourage early retirement as they assume older workers are too expensive to retain.
A 2019 issue of Generations titled “The Future of Work and Older Workers” illuminated the many challenges that occur when employers hang onto such outdated notions. Among many, such employers perpetuate unconscious biases about aging workers and may even engage in age discrimination. These employers are less likely to consider how changes with age may require workplace adjustments such as restructuring physically demanding roles or introducing ergonomic supports. They avoid conversations that facilitate a mutually desirable retirement or engage counseling services that help employees chart viable pathways from full-time work into retirement.
The authors featured in the current issue of Generations have presented a new approach to human resources management for the aging workforce.
For the past decade, the authors featured in this current issue of Generations have presented a new approach to human resources management for the aging workforce. A model in which employers learn about the unique challenges and opportunities presented by the aging workforce and then move to adopt management strategies that reduce unconscious biases, age discrimination, and build on the skills, resilience, and knowledge that older employees bring to the firm. This issue establishes a business case for employers to embrace this new approach and promote the health, well-being, and financial security of aging Americans by doing so.
Are Employers Ready?
Our opening articles establish the case for an age-diverse workforce. The authors examine what creates a workplace that employs individuals representing up to four or five generations, how continued employment of older adults does not necessarily remove unconscious biases held about aging workers, the variety of age-inclusive management strategies that employers can put into practice, and why the employment of aging workers leads to deriving benefits from the longevity economy.
Together, the articles serve to challenge two assumptions: that aging is mainly a story of decline and that older workers are focused only on retirement and a life of leisure. Neither reflects the diversity of the aging workforce as it exists today—older Americans fall across a wide spectrum in terms of education, health, and personal preferences. Some older workers benefit from targeted efforts to provide support such as respite for caregiving responsibilities, while other employees thrive when given the chance to master new technologies, mentor colleagues, and contribute their lifetime of experiences to the growth of the firm.
Indeed, researchers have established a relationship between age-inclusive employer policies and individual employee outcomes. Age-targeted health promotion and prevention programs correspond with a reduction in age-associated illnesses; implementation of age-friendly workplace accommodations increase job satisfaction; employment assistance programs that support employed elder caregivers reduce unplanned workplace exits and undesired losses of salary and benefits; ergonomic accommodations prevent workplace injuries and accidents.
Employer readiness begins with learning about this spectrum rather than relying on a black and white image of the “older worker” who simply is working until they can retire. Employers that consider how every generation should be incorporated into recruitment and retention strategies are going to derive benefits that are left on the table by those that hold onto the “old” notions about human resources.
Are Employers Willing?
Given the organizational benefit of offering such policies and programs, the next questions raised in this issue concerns how to increase employer’s willingness to respond. Educating employers and human resources leaders about ageism, such as how some managers believe that experienced employees are not as well suited for the contemporary workplace and are more costly to retain, really is just a first step. Employers need more than awareness to initiate organizational change. Employers must also be willing to examine their current practices that shape who is recruited, trained, promoted, retained, and displaced.
Our authors amplify how the willingness to change involves conducting internal evaluations that identify the preferences and needs of their aging workforce and identify strategies that appear most suitable to the firm. For example, a review of job recruitment strategies may reveal how job descriptions and postings may inadvertently favor younger applicants by requiring graduation dates that are identified as “screen outs” by automated screening tools. Long-held assumptions about continuing education and training may focus on recruiting younger employees and neglect older workers even though they are both able and willing to maintain their workplace skills.
This issue offers a series of case examples from local government, the private sector, and community organizations that show how intergenerational strategies can move from aspiration to adoption. The issue also illuminates the critical role of trade associations and nonprofit organizations in supporting employer efforts to learn about and adopt age-inclusive management strategies.
The articles on legal trends and the value of experience show both the opportunities employers miss when they fail to review and evaluate them. To move forward with strategy adoption, employers must gather their own evidence about where experience creates value in their organization, how older workers complement younger workers, and how the implementation of multi-generational teams and reverse mentoring can benefit everyone.
Are Employers Able?
We most certainly think so. This issue offers a series of case examples from local government, the private sector, and community organizations that show how intergenerational strategies can move from aspiration to adoption. The issue also illuminates the critical role of trade associations and nonprofit organizations in supporting employer efforts to learn about and adopt age-inclusive management strategies.
Our authors also point to the critical role that government organizations and philanthropic foundations can assume in supporting employer efforts to move forward. Such organizations are critical in supporting experimentation and systems change, translating research into management strategies that support and protect aging workers. Indeed, we call upon these organizations to elevate the inclusion of “age-friendly employers” in the spectrum and incorporate the aging workforce into the nation-wide multisector plans on aging.
Some employers certainly have responded to the unprecedented opportunity to tap into the decades of expertise and skills of aging employees and promote growth and profitably within their companies by doing so. Others are just beginning to see the value of America’s experienced workforce.
Employers are ready, they are willing, and they most certainly are able.
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