Are boomers the answer to the great resignation?

Boomers, the nation’s job mar­ket needs you.

Employ­ers are grap­pling with unprece­dent­ed staff short­ages across the UK, with a record 1.2 mil­lion vacan­cies. As the econ­o­my rebounds from Covid-19 shut­downs, busi­ness­es are strug­gling to rebuild their work­force to respond to a surge in demand.

Pubs and restau­rants can’t hire the staff they need to put food and drink on cus­tomers’ tables. House­builders can’t recruit brick­lay­ers and car­pen­ters to pro­vide the new homes need­ed by so many fam­i­lies.

The trend is sim­i­lar in the pub­lic sec­tor. The NHS and social care each have more than 100,000 unfilled vacan­cies, while the edu­ca­tion sec­tor needs to recruit thou­sands of teach­ers at every lev­el.

Economic inactivity

The prob­lem? An army of employ­ees have left the labour mar­ket com­plete­ly. The Insti­tute for Employ­ment Stud­ies esti­mates there are still 600,000 few­er peo­ple in work than before the pan­dem­ic, and more than a mil­lion few­er than if employ­ment had con­tin­ued to grow at pre-Covid rates.

Sig­nif­i­cant­ly, more than half of this change is down to old­er work­ers leav­ing the employ­ment mar­ket. Put sim­ply, there are few­er old­er peo­ple in work. Eco­nom­ic inac­tiv­i­ty among peo­ple aged over 50 has grown by 560,000 since the cri­sis began.

In the UK, like sev­er­al oth­er indus­tri­alised coun­tries, the great res­ig­na­tion is grey, even as the offi­cial age of retire­ment is ris­ing. With few­er migrant work­ers and more young peo­ple in edu­ca­tion, it’s clear why the employ­ment mar­ket is in cri­sis.

Address­ing the skills short­age in the UK demands a mul­ti-faceted strate­gic approach and will take sev­er­al years to cor­rect. Old­er peo­ple must be at the heart of this process. They often have the skills and expe­ri­ence that are in short sup­ply across so many sec­tors and indus­tries. They also have the age pro­file and insight that is like­ly to match both senior deci­sion-mak­ers and high­er-spend­ing cus­tomers, which can help to build rela­tion­ships.

Entic­ing these skilled work­ers back into employ­ment while retain­ing those who may be approach­ing retire­ment will be a huge chal­lenge for busi­ness. The real­i­ty is that many over-50s see the world of work as a hos­tile envi­ron­ment and would rather suf­fer a fall in liv­ing stan­dards than try to fit in when they do not feel wel­come. An extreme exam­ple hit the head­lines recent­ly, when it was revealed that IBM referred to old­er work­ers as “dinob­a­bies” and talked about remov­ing them from the work­place to make way for younger peo­ple.

Business brain drain

Doc­tors, nurs­es, car­pen­ters, elec­tri­cians, dri­vers, cater­ers: many are quit­ting work and tak­ing their skills with them. This ‘brain drain’ is bad for busi­ness and for the econ­o­my as a whole.

Why is it hap­pen­ing? By 2030 half of all adults in the UK will be over 50.  Even so, the work­place is still tilt­ed towards younger peo­ple in areas like train­ing, pro­mo­tion oppor­tu­ni­ties, flex­i­bil­i­ty in time off for car­ing respon­si­bil­i­ties and so on.

Dur­ing the pan­dem­ic, old­er work­ers were more like­ly to be fur­loughed than younger col­leagues, accord­ing to the Insti­tute for Fis­cal Stud­ies. Many employ­ers don’t con­sid­er age when look­ing to improve diver­si­ty and inclu­sion in recruit­ment, while the type of lan­guage used in job adver­tise­ments can deter old­er work­ers from apply­ing.

Many work­places are reluc­tant to make rea­son­able adjust­ments for old­er work­ers as they might for oth­er groups. For exam­ple, new tech­nol­o­gy is avail­able that reduces the phys­i­cal impact of some work, such as lift­ing heav­ier weights or bend­ing and stretch­ing to com­plete tasks. While allowance is gen­er­al­ly made for child­care respon­si­bil­i­ties, line man­agers are less accom­mo­dat­ing when it comes to car­ing for an old­er part­ner or par­ent. Even social events at work tend to be organ­ised around the inter­ests of younger peo­ple.

Old­er work­ers fear and expe­ri­ence dis­crim­i­na­to­ry atti­tudes and prej­u­di­cial behav­iour in the labour mar­ket, says Dr Emi­ly Andrews, deputy direc­tor of evi­dence at the Cen­tre for Age­ing Bet­ter think­tank. She notes that 36% of those aged 50–69 feel dis­ad­van­taged by their age when apply­ing for jobs, while 17% report direct expe­ri­ence of age dis­crim­i­na­tion in the hir­ing process.

“This sense of hos­til­i­ty in the labour mar­ket is a key fac­tor in dis­cour­ag­ing old­er work­ers away from work,” Andrews says. “Encour­ag­ing employ­ers to active­ly pur­sue this age group and to tack­le age bias in their recruit­ment prac­tices would help address this long­stand­ing issue, which is now more urgent­ly need­ed to tempt this cohort back to work.”

Challenge preconceptions

There are many steps employ­ers can take to recruit and retain old­er work­ers. When it comes to hir­ing, don’t just rely on online plat­forms and dig­i­tal appli­ca­tion forms. There is noth­ing wrong with a stan­dard, tra­di­tion­al job appli­ca­tion form.

Don’t ask job appli­cants to state their date of birth and avoid ques­tions like “where do you see your­self in five/10 years’ time?” It also helps to include old­er peo­ple on your recruit­ing pan­el to avoid any uncon­scious bias. Chal­lenge any pre­con­cep­tions, like assum­ing old­er peo­ple take more sick days (they don’t).

Employ­ers must look at their data on the age range and struc­ture of their work­force to under­stand how exposed dif­fer­ent teams and busi­ness areas are to the retire­ment of col­leagues. This will help organ­i­sa­tions mit­i­gate the poten­tial loss of skills and expe­ri­ence.

Offer mean­ing­ful train­ing to old­er work­ers to update their skills. Some­times employ­ers baulk at the cost of train­ing for employ­ees who might retire soon, but this can be a false econ­o­my, demo­ti­vat­ing those who are exclud­ed. Adopt men­tor­ing schemes to encour­age old­er work­ers to share skills and expe­ri­ence with younger col­leagues; this also fos­ters team build­ing.

Dur­ing the pan­dem­ic, busi­ness­es became more agile in terms of work­ing hours and work­place atten­dance, a trend that’s gen­er­al­ly been pos­i­tive for old­er work­ers. Main­tain­ing these kinds of flex­i­ble work­ing arrange­ments will be crit­i­cal when it comes to recruit­ing and retain­ing old­er peo­ple.

Some com­pa­nies are mov­ing towards flex­i­ble retire­ment, where employ­ees take their pen­sions but con­tin­ue to work for the com­pa­ny. The employ­ees have ful­fill­ing lives with enhanced finan­cial sup­port, while their employ­er con­tin­ues to ben­e­fit from their expe­ri­ence and com­mit­ment. Mid-career con­ver­sa­tions with senior man­agers can help employ­ees take steps to pre­pare for work­ing in lat­er life while also feel­ing val­ued by their employ­er.

Older workers are key

Under­stand­ing the chal­lenges and oppor­tu­ni­ties of an age­ing pop­u­la­tion is vital if we want to cre­ate pro­duc­tive, inno­v­a­tive and inclu­sive mul­ti-gen­er­a­tional teams as we all lead longer work­ing lives. As the pop­u­la­tion ages, it makes sound busi­ness sense to have a work­force that broad­ly reflects the cus­tomer base.

Andy Brig­gs, chief exec­u­tive of Phoenix Group, is the government’s busi­ness cham­pi­on for old­er work­ers. He wants more employ­ers to focus on attract­ing over-50s, who he says bring a wealth of expe­ri­ence, skills, and per­spec­tives.

“Up to a mil­lion over-50s aren’t work­ing when they gen­uine­ly want to do so,” says Brig­gs. “While some peo­ple have active­ly cho­sen not to work as they get old­er, many are forced into this posi­tion. This is an impor­tant issue that we all need to tack­le, one that is exac­er­bat­ed by labour mar­ket short­ages and pro­duc­tiv­i­ty chal­lenges.”

Phoenix Group believes a diverse work­force in terms of age can ben­e­fit a com­pa­ny. With about half of con­sumer spend­ing from the over-50s, it’s essen­tial the com­pa­ny rep­re­sents its cus­tomers and com­mu­ni­ties, he says.

“Old­er work­ers are a key part of the solu­tion.”