Reality not perception concerning older workers

In the past year I have written about how many employers and employees have a view of older workers that isn’t fair or accurate. If you take a lot of those perceived issues and understand that they aren’t backed up with any proof that seems to say that there are benefits to hiring older workers. Apparently it doesn’t seem that everyone is buying into the fact that older workers are no less productive than younger workers.

Maybe we shouldn’t try to pump up the value of older workers as if they are special and need to be treated as special. How about treating them like any other group of workers? It seems that part of the problem is that the segmentation of the older workers versus the younger workers. A good deal has been written on the internet and the print media about baby boomers. When you try to place people in groups according to age as opposed to ability then you are somehow making a distinction between the older and younger workers. Unfortunately the older workers usually come out of the grouping as being unable to learn new technology, becomes sick more often and not as easy to work with. It sounds like age discrimination.

I read a report on the government website GAO concerning older workers “Some best practices and strategies for engaging and retaining older workers.” It starts out by listing some of the usual erroneous complaints about older workers. But then it suggests that employers use flexible work situations to adapt the physical constraints of older people. In other works let’s make it easier for the old people on the job. Another suggestion is to ensure that the older workers are trained with financial literacy skills to help with their retirement. Frankly those skills should be taught to everyone if the company feels that it is their responsibility to guide their employees to retirement.

The last bullet point was to treat all employees in a fair and consistent manner. Is it consistent to make adjustments to schedules for older workers or is it consistent to teach financial literacy skills to just older workers. It doesn’t sound consistent.

Hopefully in the near future when the number of older workers becomes much greater than it is today there wouldn’t be such divisive talk about how age changes employees.