Why Older Workers Are Now the Better Choice
There's a lot to be said
for youth and inexperience, but many companies today need wiser, more
experienced workers to get them through the next business cycle. It's time to
go gray.
EXPERT OPINION BY HOWARD
TULLMAN, GENERAL MANAGING PARTNER, G2T3V AND CHICAGO HIGH TECH
INVESTORS@HOWARDTULLMAN1
As more and more
businesses begin to feel confident about the stickiness of the post-pandemic
economy, and their revenues crest or outstrip their pre-Covid levels, company
owners and managers are beginning to slowly try to hire back people they have
let go in the last three years. That's not necessarily an easy task because a
lot of their former team members have moved on, moved out, or aren't interested
in returning to their old jobs.
To allow this rebuilding
to be done at scale is also going to require a sizeable amount of attitude
adjustment on the part of all the parties. Millions of young people think the
stock market only goes up and that the world is just waiting to make them rich.
Millions of middle-aged people thought they had signed up for lifetime
employment and now are learning that they need to be lifelong learners to stay
relevant and employed. What keeps growing never grows old. And millions of
aspiring entrepreneurs think that tech is going to solve all the world's
problems if the old guys will just get out of the way. It's going to take a lot
of patience, pain, and perseverance to pull off this process of re-upping and
reloading the workforce.
Hiring the right number,
desired skillsets and demographic mix of new employees is clearly more
challenging than before because rapid advances in various AI technologies, new,
increasingly intelligent robotics, and the expanded automation of many traditional
processes have changed the game. A significant number of the old positions have
been eliminated (or compressed) and many others require new and different
skills.01:23
As a result, the job
descriptions and search parameters for qualified candidates who are already
trained and can smoothly step into the open slots have also been altered and
updated. Experience and expertise are going to be highly valued, along with the
ability to hit the ground running. The last thing that many of these companies
desire is to spend a lot of scarce dollars for on-the-job training.
Another large group of
theoretical prospects are the pools of recent college graduates -- a great
number of whom have never had a full-time job. Unfortunately, far
too many of them have unrealistic compensation goals, work-life expectations,
and other employment requirements, which make them less attractive and riskier
hires. They don't seem to have gotten the memo about what "work" actually means in
the real world. They've also never lived through a real economic downturn or
suffered through a recession and seen friends and families lose their jobs,
savings, and sometimes far more than that.
So, they're softer, less
resilient, and aggressively impatient -- but not in a good way. Since things
have largely always gone their way, they haven't really learned much about
adversity or the bitter compromises everyone eventually makes in life. You
don't really learn from good experiences and success -- you just keep doing
things the same way that you always have done.
Energy, enthusiasm, and
eagerness used to be critical considerations in
hiring new employees. These are still important attributes, but we're facing
another year or two of market uncertainty, slow and careful growth rather than
explosive leaps, and an overall interest in patience, prudence and hunkering
down to weather the next storm. Security, stability, and liquidity are going to
be top of mind for senior management, stockholders, and stakeholders and no one
wants to be seen hanging way out over their skis.
As a result, in the
smartest and most competitive companies, we're going to see another dramatic
shift in their hiring perspectives: more focus on gray hair, prior, relevant
work experience and, maybe most importantly, men and women of a certain age who
are now far more readily available in significant numbers. They're grounded,
serious and realistic and they're much more about taking orders than taking
risks, and that's a good thing. These are the mid-careerists who've seen the
hard times and remember the troughs and valleys that always offset the peaks
and moonshots that have been all the media rage for the last two decades.
The pampered and
hyper-parented Gen Zers have heard incessantly, their whole lives, about home
runs, trees that grow to the sky, and the glory days. By contrast the older
folks have seen the bumps in the road as well. People who've maybe lost a
serious job or two; who have serious financial, family, and other
obligations; and, frankly, who are likely to be excited and grateful to be
rejoining the working world at this point in their careers. What they may lack
in speed and reaction time is far less critical in the tortoise times to come
when only the craziest rabbits are running amok. The fact that they appreciate
the opportunity and what they can make out of it instead of regarding a job as
something they're willing to settle for in the moment tells a smart employer
everything you need to know.
Resilience is a powerful
muscle that grows stronger over time and through repeated exercise and testing.
Our teams need it now more than ever.
