Entries Tagged with older

Monday August 11th, 2008
Older Workers: Forget the Hair Dye and Botox

Are you a baby boomer looking for a new job? If so, don't open this bottle of hair dye just yet.

If you're worried about competing with younger workers, forget about the facelift, the hair color and even the botox treatment you've scheduled. According to a new study, your time will be better spent dusting off your dimploma, not trying to look younger.

New research from the Urban Institute says the fastest-growing occupations that already draw most of their employees from workers over the age of 55 rely on brains, not brawn.

Jobs are less physically demanding now than they were just three decades ago and less likely to entail difficult working conditions. Between 1971 and 2007 the percentage of jobs with great physical demands declined from 8.0 to 6.6 percent. The percentage of jobs requiring skills that show a high cognitive ability grew from 26.5 to 36 percent.

Since people working in these "high cognitative" professions have to inspire trust in the community and among customers, wrinkles and grey hair might even be a benefit.

Consider the list of these fast-growing professions for older workers: personal financial advisors, veterinarians, social and community service managers, surveyors, environmental scientists and geoscientists, registered nurses, and instructional coordinators. The list also includes postsecondary teachers, archivists and curators, social workers, management analysts, pharmacists, counselors, and business operation specialists.

Of all professions, the fastest-growing area that is friendliest to older workers are personal and home care aides. Other categories that require less education include ushers, animal trainers, locksmiths, and brokerage clerks.

According to the institute, each of these fields is expected to see its workforce grow by least 20 percent by 2016. The portion of older workers filling these jobs will surpass the 17 per cent of all workers.

The study,“Will Employers Want Aging Boomers?” by Gordon B.T. Mermin, Richard W. Johnson, and Eric J. Toder, uses data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employment and Training Administration, and Census Bureau.

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Friday May 23rd, 2008
Older Workers Need Not Fear Downturn

Yes, it's the weekend and this blog has been going crazy with new posts. Still, this news is too appropriate for recent discussions not to blog immediately.

Professor Ryan Zimmerman, who teaches human resource management at Texas A&M University says that older workers need not fear an economic downturn...as long as they take a few important measures.

Keep current

"The key is to not let yourself stagnate. Keep your skills up-to-date and network – whatever you can do to remain marketable – and above all, remain flexible. I think it’s good when a person in a position for a long time decides to learn something new. It’s good for the employee and it’s good for the organization."

That kind of thinking, Zimmerman says, gives older workers more options whether a promotion within their existing organizations or moving into higher-paying jobs somewhere else.

Keep Your Skills Up-to-Date

If your company has a further-education or life-time learning benefit, use it.

"A lot of companies offer tuition reimbursement so not only are they paying for your education, a lot of times they’re giving you time off work to go do it."

Know Your Options

Even if you're not looking for a job, look for a job. Look at what is out there, the skills required and what salaries are.

“That way you can kind of shop around for what else you’d like to do in case you do go through a down-sizing or lay-off,” Zimmerman says. "A little time spent on self-examination can turn into a whole new career, with a whole new set of rewards."

Remember, You are In Demand

As jobs open due to baby boomer retirements, Zimmerman says, many employers prefer to replace them with workers who have some experience.

For good reason.

"These people represent a lot of institutional knowledge and experience that the company can’t get elsewhere, and companies are finding it difficult to capture that knowledge," Zimmerman says. “I don’t think the negative is in being older, it’s in being out of date with your skills – and that is fairly easy to solve.

Those workers will certainly be easier to find than younger workers.

The US Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates the population of people 55 and older will grow by 5.2 percent, while the population of people 16-54 will only grow by 1.6 percent between 1998 and 2015. Between 2015 and 2025, the 65 and older population is expected to grow by 3.2 percent. The 16-64 age bracket will only grow by .8 percent during the same decades.

Luckily, according to an AARP report, about 80 percent of baby boomers plan on working past the typical retirement age of 65.

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Thursday May 22nd, 2008
The generation gap: Is it really that surprising?

According to survey results released by Randstad USA (a temp staffing firm), the big obstacle in bridging the generation gap in the workplace is simply that 20-something workers rarely 'chat' to their colleagues aged 50+.

Fully 66% of older workers report little to no interaction with their younger co-workers.

What I find kind of funny about this is that when Reuters ran an article about the findings - based on a survey of 3500 workers from various generations - they fell back on the usual stereotypes of how Gen Ys and Baby Boomers 'don't understand each other', and how Gen Ys think older workers are out of touch or too conservative in their thinking, etc.

But I think that there are two very simple reasons why there isn't much interaction:

(1) The average 20-something and the average 50-something are at such different life stages that they don't really have a whole lot to 'chat' about - the 25-year-old is thinking about Saturday night and new apartments and Facebook, while the 55-year-old is thinking about kids going to university and redoing the roof at the cottage. There isn't a whole lot of natural intersection there.

(2) It's more than likely that the baby-boomer is in 'management', while the Gen Yer is a 'junior'. How much 'chatting' are you going to do with your boss? Or your subordinate?

There's no question that diverse workplaces, in which different teams of people - from different age groups, races, religions, creeds, etc. - are brought together to work on projects is a good thing. Working in diverse teams encourages communication, and, perhaps more importantly, provides opportunities for 'chatting'. But I have to say that I am getting a little exasperated with people drawing spurious conclusions from

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Tuesday May 20th, 2008
Recruiting older workers: some notes from the front lines

I just found myself writing a rather lengthy comment on Kathleen Dodaro's blog entry about recruiting older workers, and realized that some of the information might be interesting here. Ms Dodaro wrote a post about recruiting older workers (baby-boomers) who were interested in rejoining the workforce because they had had some crisis and needed the income. (There is to be a Part II to her blog entry, about how/when organizations should actively recruit older workers.)

My response:

As someone who has been running an employment website for older workers for almost 5 years now, I think you might be missing 70% of older workers here (since our annual surveys of older workers say that only 30% of them are going back to work for the 3 reasons you've listed here).
 
70% of the time - at least in Canada, and at least among our 25,000 registered job-seekers - older workers are going back to work for one basic reason: they are bored out of their minds. They raced to the retirement finish line, because they thought that was what they were supposed to do, but then 6 months in, they've renovated the house and tidied up the garden and look around and think "I'm only 60 - I can't do this for the next 25 years or I will go insane."
 
And that's when they start to think about going back to work.
 
As far as recruiting older workers is concerned, well, that's another matter. 90% of the time, we're seeing organizations ONLY start to think about older workers because they're desperate: they can't get enough students to do the part-time work; they've got maternity leaves to fill and no younger workers interested in a 6-month contract; or they've got some legacy systems that only some 25-year mainframe veteran knows how to use.
 
Yes, it's changing a little - in the past 18 months we're seeing employers much more interested in older workers than they used to be; but again, that's more to do with desperation than anything else.
 
Anyway, sorry to evangelize here - but with no established paradigm for older workers in the workforce, I think it's important to address some of these things.

There's no question that the next 12 months are going to be an interesting time in the US - and probably also in Canada - as the shrinking workforce meets a shrinking economy, thus throwing the newfound desire for older workers into some doubt.

In the past couple of years, employers have been increasingly interested in the 50+ demo as a great source of hidden talent, since the 'normal' talent market has become so competitive. But of course the sub-prime mortgage crisis in the US has set off a chain of events (and we're kidding ourselves if we think the effects won't be felt in Canada - or that they aren't, already) that will continue to reverberate for the next 12-24 months at least - and how will that affect the talent market as a whole, and, in turn, the demand for older workers?

I feel like I'm the only one asking this question at the moment, but if anyone else wants to chime in, go right ahead...

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Paul Dodd
Co-founder and President
Head2Head Canada

Paul has one simple goal: To help companies hire great people - and get the most out of every recruiting dollar they spend. That's why he's recognized as one of the best recruitment-industry thinkers in Canada.

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