Hiring “Think Silver”

New Ways of Working | Digital Workplace | Silver Solution

1. Faster to work (Time to competency) – They already know a lot. 
2. Less training required – Many older workers focus on learning the things they need to know to do the job and require less overall training. 
3. Upward mobility not issue – Many older workers aren’t looking to move up the org chart.  They just want to do the work and go home. 
4. Flexible workforce- Older workers may have more flexible schedules for many reasons.. 
5. Lower expectations on comp – Older workers know how things work.  Many people just want to work and make a few bucks.  Some need the work but understand compensation practices from their years of experience. 
6. Lower overall costs- Studies show the costs of healthcare are higher for older workers.  While it is true that health care costs are higher for older workers, these studies are focused on one thing not the total costs.  When older workers representing a flexible workforce model get sick, they leave.  The higher costs are associated with the long term employee that can’t or won’t retire.  If we account for all of the costs (which no study does) of older workers in the workplace, the costs may be lower overall.   Think about a “Gig” model with older workers that have medicare,  in many cases would be lower cost.  
7. Wisdom-Older workers have wisdom FIN. 
8. Opportunity to give back to the world (legacy).  Many people I know want to give or give back.  They feel obligated to share knowledge with the younger generation.   Many are starving to do it.  How many people do you know who simply want to work as a Walmart greeter?  Having interactions with people and purpose is a great motivator. 
9. Highly transactional- Short term, long term, what do you need?  Just ask and we can work it out…  
10. Highly reliable – Older workers also score high in leadership, detail-oriented tasks, organization, listening, writing skills and problem solving — even in cutting-edge fields like computer science. 
11. Feel productive– Having purposeful work and feeling productive encourages health and well being. 
12. Win – Win – Win -Good for them, you and the world. 

As the workforce ages, we shouldn’t be so quick to dismiss the value of older workers.  Many older workers are digitally savvy, flexible,  and capable of driving business faster with lower costs.  They bring their experience and expertise and can solve problems or know answers to unwritten challenges.    Companies are turning to technology and youth to answer the same questions over and again without capturing the knowledge of the older workforce.  The result is having to either solve the same problems over and again or coming up with totally new ways to do something that was easily solvable.   #KM Failure

Charles Steinmetz

Henry Ford, whose electrical engineers couldn’t solve some problems they were having with a gigantic generator, called Charles Steinmetz in to the plant. Upon arriving, Steinmetz rejected all assistance and asked only for a notebook, pencil and cot.  Steinmetz listened to the generator and scribbled computations on the notepad for two straight days and nights. On the second night, he asked for a ladder, climbed up the generator and made a chalk mark on its side. Then he told Ford’s skeptical engineers to remove a plate at the mark and replace sixteen windings from the field coil. They did, and the generator performed to perfection.

Henry Ford was thrilled until he got an invoice from General Electric in the amount of $10,000. Ford acknowledged Steinmetz’s success but balked at the figure. He asked for an itemized bill.

Steinmetz, Scott wrote, responded personally to Ford’s request with the following:

Making chalk mark on generator $1.

Knowing where to make mark $9,999.

Ford paid the bill.

Let’s get the message out …  

Thoughts?