There are two things thatjust about every business needs: Customers and Employees. No matter what industry you’re in, you needboth to make your business thrive. You need customers with money and needs andyou need employees that are dependable, focused, honest, loyal, organized, andresponsible. Today, we’re going to focus on the employee part of this equation.
It is estimated thatAmerican employers will spend millions of man-hours annually placing ads,screening candidates and then interviewing the ones they didn’t weed out. Andthen, even more man-hours hiring and onboarding new employees before puttingthem through a training program!
You’ve been through thedrill and like so many other employers, you have a new employee work for ashort time, a few months if you’re lucky, only for them to tell you “this isn’tfor me” or “I’m looking for something more fulfilling”. Or worse, they don’ttell you anything at all and just quit showing up.
Are there any moredependable, steady workers out there these days? Anyone left that will dedicatethemselves to the betterment of the company as a ‘team player’ and take pridein that? Or are they all out for themselves and don’t think twice about thewake they leave behind?
Well, take a look at theaverage age of your employees. Are most of them in their 20s and 30s, maybe afew in their early 40s? Do you tend to lean toward hiring a rookie over aveteran when you’re in that weeding out process?
It’s Time To Take A Different Approach
It may be time for you toforget the myths about older workers being too expensive to hire and being out-of-datewith today’s technology. Why? Well, they are competent, loyal, and will helpyour bottom line.
Now that doesn’t mean youshould hire only seasoned veterans. A company needs a good balance of both theveterans and the rookies. The rookies are ready and willing to challenge thestatus quo, plus they are less expensive.
But you need the seasonedvets too because they know how to get hunkered down when things get tough andget the job done under pressure and without pressure or being asked to. It isthat latter part that you’re missing out on with the rookies.
But if that alone isn’tenough to convince you why you should give older applicants more consideration,and by older, we’re talking about the 50 and over group, take a look thefollowing reasons:
Strong work ethic: The older worker will be, on average, dedicated and more reliable,both of which will save you money in the long run. When it comes to customerservice, the mature workers will outshine the younger generation every time. Moreover,critical thinking skills improve over time resulting in better decisions byolder workers.
Older workers can alsomake excellent mentors to their youngercolleagues in an organization streamlining knowledge transfer and can act asprofessional “coaches” and role models. They can also illuminate a careertrajectory to the millennial workers who approach jobs and companies with amuch shorter timeframe in mind.
Despite the obvious benefitsof diversity of thought that hiring older workers brings to an organization,discrimination based on unfounded myths still plague a lot of hiring managers. Accordingto a 2013 Society for Human Resource Management study,misconceptions including higher health care costs, deteriorating performance,low ROI on older workers were all found to be untrue.
An easy way fororganizations to improve the age diversity in their workforce is through contingentworkforce arrangements. A significant number of American workers of all agesare open to temporary work nowadays through staffing firms like Oloop. Contract-to-hireand other similar arrangements provide firms with a chance to evaluate a worker’sperformance and culture fit without much upfront risk.
At Oloop, we screen andpresent candidates of merit without consideration of age, race, gender,religion, sexual orientation, etc. As the unemployment rate decreased monthover month and the talent market tightens, now is the time to take a welldeserved second look at older workers through workforce partners such as Oloop.
