As the ranks of older workers swell, employers are urged to capitalize on the trend

With a tight labor market, employers have the opportunity to hire older workers.

This article was first published on January 30, 2024 by Daily HR Advisorsister publication of HealthLeaders.

This has become a mantra echoed by more and more employers: Good help is hard to come by. For years, employers have complained about their inability to hire and retain workers for the full range of jobs, from low- to high-skill positions.

But researchers who study the workforce and the trends shaping it point to a group employers often overlook — older workers.

A look at the numbers

Understandably, employers often shy away from workers over a certain age. An employer does not want to invest in employees who they believe will want to retire after a short time. And for a long time, early retirement was a noticeable trend. Now, however, the picture has begun to change.

Management consulting firm Bain & Company recently released a study showing how workers 55 and older are quickly becoming a large and important segment of the global workforce.

Bain’s report, “Better with Age: The Growing Importance of Older Workers,” predicts that the 55-and-over crowd will surpass 25% of the workforce by 2031 in the Group of Seven (US, Canada, Germany , United States). Kingdom, Japan, France and Italy).

Bain’s analysis says the trend is most extreme in Japan, where the company expects workers 55 and older to make up nearly 40 percent of the workforce by 2031.

The report, published in July, also cited data from the polling company Gallup that 41 percent of American workers now expect to work past age 65. 30 years ago that number was 12%. Even an event as catastrophic as the pandemic did not bring about lasting change.

“Even the spike in retirements during the peak of the COVID Great Retirement now looks more like a Big Saturday, a blip in the long-term trend data, with a higher percentage of retirees returning to the workforce than in February 2019 .” said the Bain report.

Globally, Bain predicts that 150 million jobs will shift to older workers by 2030. This prediction applies worldwide, not just in higher-income countries.

What to expect from older workers

The Bain study says there is no such thing as an average worker, but most people fall into certain categories. Among these categories are “artisans” and “donors”, with older age groups being more often such workers.

Bain says that artisans, among other things, are those who tend to look for work that fascinates them, and they are motivated by the pursuit of mastery. They also desire autonomy and place less emphasis on companionship.

Givers find meaning in helping others, are less motivated by money, have a strong team spirit, and value personal growth and learning.

Information from the US Department of Labor’s (DOL) CareerOneStop indicates that when hiring older workers, employers reap benefits such as gaining experience and expertise. Also, older workers can often be mentored and often have a strong work ethic and fewer family commitments than younger workers.

Ways to recruit and retain older workers

A December 2022 Harvard Business Review article on attracting and retaining older frontline workers says research shows that older workers “bring a spirit of collaboration” to the workplace, and organizations can also benefit from the perspective of intergenerational teams.

The article focuses on the main roles of workers in the aged care sector, such as food servers, cooks, nursing assistants, reception workers etc., but says the research findings amount to universal principles of design applicable to many types of recruitment and retention of essential workers.

The seven principles identified include designing respectful and purposeful roles; organizing and enabling flexible schedules; adapting and meeting physical challenges; communicating clearly and candidly; community building; coping with ageism; and pay for work, not tenure. This means focusing on the value of employees’ work more than their years in the workforce.

DOL’s CareerOneStop offers the following list of best practices for recruiting and retaining older employees.

• Use non-traditional recruitment techniques such as partnerships with national organizations that focus on older Americans.
• Use flexible work situations and adapt workplace design to meet the preferences and physical limitations of older workers.
• Offer the right mix of benefits and incentives to attract older workers, such as tuition assistance, elder care leave, employee discounts and retirement plans that allow retirees to return to work.
• Equip employees with financial literacy skills to ensure they have a realistic plan for retirement security.
• Treat all employees fairly and consistently and use a consistent performance management system to prevent complaints of age discrimination.