Older

Worker’

HELPWANTED

NEED NOT APPLY

s

Have the Boomer’s passed their “Use By’ date?

Rob Crawford 2009

This presentation invites the

viewer to redefine the meaning

of work, consider who and

what has value, recalculate the

cost/benefit analysis of the

employment relationship and

embrace the value of a diverse

workforce

The current economic recession has impacted the American workforce’s sense of job security.

This crisis has causedemployers’ to cut staff & labor costs acrossall positions

A reoccurring theme in the media suggests that this burden is being unfairly borne by the Boomer’s

Significant numbers of unemployed “older workers” over the age of 45are having a hard time finding new jobs

The notion is knowledge is not an asset. Companies need labor.

The prevailing stories says a smart ambitious kid who has no preconceived understanding, can be quickly molded for less money.

Is there an age bias against hiring older

workers or is this just business as usual?

The April 12& 13, 2009 edition of the New York Times Room for Debate blog asked experts and reader’s to comment on the issue.

Specifically, are older worker’s being viewed as less qualified, less hardworking and more expensive than younger workers?

As one can imagine, there was a broad range of commentary….

The expert’s provided context & duly noted perspective….

Qualified? Yes. Expensive? No.

Nothing is really new about employers preferring to hire younger candidates. Experiments have shown that even when credentials are absolutely identical, employers much prefer the younger candidates.

Peter Cappelli

Their Skills Are Too Specific

Older workers have a lifetime of preferences and skills — essentially unique-shaped pegs that can fit into a limited number of holes. Younger workers are malleable and can fit more easily into a variety of positions.

Alicia H. Munnell

“The older I get, the more productive I am.” Experience counts for a lot. But the painful truth is this: Our productivity peaks in our mid-40s and gradually declines with age. Employers should simply pay you less with age. There is no need to lay you off.

Laurence J. Kotlikoff

Pay the Aged Less

Clever and nimble employers use recessions as an opportunity to shake up their work forces: they can get younger, cheaper, freshly trained workers for bargain-basement salaries and lower health care premiums.

Teresa Ghilarducci

It’s About Cost, Not Competence

The younger generation, on average, is higher in self-esteem, assertiveness & narcissism… unfortunately, these same traits- particularly narcissism- will later cause large problems for managers when they reappear as entitlement, overconfidence and conflicts with co-workers.

Jean Twenge

Young and in Love — With Themselves

Gen Y reader responses…….

Older workers have trouble with computers. A lack of general skills makes it harder for them to learn new software, and many seem to resent having to learn.

They’re more likely to call the IT department, and to lean on younger workers for help.

There’s no easy way to

gain general tech skills that young people have but to be young - play video games, update your FaceBook daily, text message your friends

Matt

• Older worker’s are

less cost effective• Less flexible

mentally• A lot less driven

I rationalized that sometimes a company must sacrifice the older workers to make way for younger ones — and now I am realizing that even the younger ones are dispensable.

Smidely

Companies don’t want older workers and they don’t want skill. They want work that can be easily managed and transferred.

Jim C

Both of my 50-something parents have more sophisticated IT skills than nearly all of my friends and 20-something coworkers.

Rebecca

Every workplace needs old and young employees. To completely generalize, the old lend their experience while the young contribute energy. Wacky new ideas are vetted while stale procedures are overhauled.

Katinka

Older workers don’t fit in as well and don’t take shit (directions or corrections well)

The Boomer’s have some rejoinder’s to offer …

There is no intention of lowering pay or reducing hours so that everyone make it through an economic crisis with good health. High pay justifies firing people.

SWP

I resist the

temptation to admit I’m screwed. Perhaps that’s the essential difference between me and a younger worker.

Tony

The perception that younger workers are more malleable somehow fits into the attitude that older workers can’t manage change.

Would I come across as more technologically competent if I sat through an interview, sending text messages every time the interviewer turned his or her head?

Mike

Hiring managers prefer applicants who don’tlook, sound, or act old.

(They also prefer applicants who aren’t fat, disabled, poor, and basically aren’t different.)

I am an older worker at age 60 and even though I cannot run a 100yd dash as quickly as I did at 40 years, I can still run.

Paul Alleyne

Rarely, do young workers get a job and stay with it over the long term, older workers do because they know pretty much what they want and go directly to it rather that move from one job to another.

Is it any surprise that any expensive source of workers should have difficulty in finding employment in a nation that believes in the virtues of a cheap supply of workers?

Bob Sallamack

The environment is pretty abusive, although that’s carefully hidden from the newer kids. There is a constant stream of verbal abuse, veiled threats and high decibel activity behind the curtains.

SWP

No company can be run well without a good, knowledgeably , experienced workforce. The best people in any workforce are the older workers.

When you are an experienced worker with good skills, you are more productive in terms of quality work, as your experience teaches you how to do things more efficiently and how to avoid errors which can be costly to the company.

Dan Kuhn

Finding some common ground….

Despite the immediate “shortage” of jobs, there is an ongoing gap of skilled labor that will be a need to “infilled” from all generations.

When times are tough, we must resistthe temptation to indulge stereotypes, assumptions, and bias about age - from both directions!

As a 22 year old college graduate with a pile of student loans to pay off, many employers seem unwilling to hire without extensive experience.

Perhaps the frustrations of finding work at any age should cause us to support each other instead of seeking blame.Colleen

Young people who are hired and put to work with older experienced people learn faster. They also learn things about working for the company they can learn no other way.

No one wants to run computer applications for an older co-worker constantly, but at the same time, no one wants to waste time repeating mistakes due to the naiveté of younger workers.

Katinka

Collaboration between those with experience and those with chutzpah is likely to result in more sustainable success than the current system yields.

A vision of an emerging &

not-so-future workplace

The notion of “job” will so fundamentally change in the next decade (replaced by “independent value creator” — or some such buzz word) that whether you are 21 or 81 will become irrelevant.

As we move ever more quickly into the fullness of the 21st century, jobs will be less and less about employers, and more and more about “value creation.”

There is a real and distinct difference, and this difference involves a paradigm change that is enormous.

The issue will be intellectual (and sometimes physical) suitability for “things to do,” rather than a job.

Most “jobs” or “things to do” will be very temporary and subject to rapid change, issues such as tenure, pension, and health care will migrate out of the “corporate environment” into the individual and government-sponsored worlds.

Not everyone or every “job” will change overnight — or this year. But the change in how one earns a livelihood will be so dramatically different in the future as to be unrecognizable.

Henry Doss

Photo credits courtesy of the amazing work of :

1.Marta Kagan @ slideshare.net2.Lee Hecht Harrison@

slideshare.net3.ABCnews.com4.AARP.com5.SeniorJournal.com6.Flickr.creativecommons.com

Rob Crawford, 2009http://www.slideshare.net/ldiinariz