Employers are largely unprepared to attract and retain talent, especially younger and older talent, according to Dr. Vânia de la Fuente-Núñez. If companies are not promoting youth employment and strategizing to attract and retain older talent, ageism could be making them blind to talent.
“Globally, only 21% of companies have policies to address ageism,” says Fuente-Núñez. “And only a meager 13% have specific measures to leverage an intergenerational workforce.”
Fuente-Núñez, a medical doctor, author, anthropologist and public health expert, is dedicated to addressing critical global issues, particularly combatting ageism. Formerly with the World Health Organization, Fuente-Núñez was the lead researcher for the Global Report on Ageism, the first comprehensive report addressing the impact of age-based stereotypes, prejudice and discrimination on people of all ages.
What causes talent blindness?
“Employers not being fully aware of the benefits for workplace age diversity,” says Fuente-Núñez. “Without awareness, there is no investment.”
Benefits of an All-Aged Workplace
Intergenerational teams can be a powerful driver of innovation, productivity and long-term success for organizations. By creating a culture that values and embraces age and ageing in the workplace, employers can tap into workers’ unique strengths and perspectives at any age while leveraging complementary strengths between employees.
“The magic happens at the intersection of different perspectives,” says Fuente-Núñez.
What does intergenerational innovation look like?
In one crowdsourcing experiment, gamers of all ages–from middle school to self-described grandmothers–were challenged to configure ways to fold proteins and RNA. Understanding the folding gave scientists insights into how to fight disease since the functions of proteins and RNA in our body depend on how they are folded.
The University of Washington created the project, noting the emergence of skilled players without a biochemistry background providing solutions. Three-quarters of them had little or zero experience. The big takeaway was that this intergenerational team of gamers beat protein subject matter experts, demonstrating how easily skills transfer across professional job functions.
When amongst their many skilled mathematicians and engineers, NASA was unable to find a better way to forecast solar flares to protect astronauts and satellites in space and power grids on Earth, NASA turned to crowdsourcing. The outdated model used for 30 years provided a four-hour lead-time with 50% accuracy when determining whether radiation from a solar flare would reach Earth. They pitched the problem as a data challenge and invited problem-solvers with analytic backgrounds to use their 30 years of space weather data. sought.
The solution came from a semiretired radio-frequency engineer living in rural New Hampshire. He created predictive algorithms to develop a forecasting model that provided an eight-hour lead time and 75% accuracy. This represented quite an improvement over the previous NASA model and is another example of why employers should consider looking for strong talent by thinking outside the box–even if the talent lacks specific experience.
Age does not determine the potential to contribute, whether youngers are looking for their first professional career role or olders are looking for opportunities to continue working. If a talent pool only has candidates between the ages of 25 and 40, the pool is blind to all-aged talent.
“Additionally, our research shows that turnover is lower in companies with a 10% higher proportion of workers aged 50-plus,” says Fuente-Núñez. That means companies save money by embracing an all-aged workplace, given that turnover costs are a significant line item expense.
How to Mobilize, Maintain and Maximize All-Aged Talent
Fuente-Núñez recommends employers focus on mobilizing, maintaining and maximizing talent to benefit from an intergenerational workplace.
Mobilizing talent means attracting and retaining talent at all ages by eliminating age bias and stereotyping across all human resource functions. “Take care with wording and the imagery used in job advertisements and descriptions, which can influence who applies. Use recruitment software that ignores certain words related to age, blind resumes or application forms and ensure the candidates selected to interview are representative of all ages.”
Maintain talent by creating attractive and healthy working environment. This can be achieved through the implementation of flexible work and retirement options and investments in employee health and well-being across the life cycle. Employees of all ages need flexibility at work, including an option to step out of the workplace. This could be to care for a family member, learn from an intensive self-funded educational opportunity or even to rest and recharge.
Maximizing talent requires committing to lifelong learning and the continued development of all employees, regardless of age or life stage. “Internal mobility processes enable employees to move between roles, which fosters career advancement and skill development for workers at all stages of their careers. Finally, by creating employee returnship programs, employers can reintegrate workers who have taken longer career breaks by offering additional support, mentoring, training and feedback.”
Attract All-Aged Talent to Ensure Sustainability
Across the globe, countries report increased longevity, combined with decades-long decreased birth rates–a demographic duo challenging every company’s talent sustainability strategy. Off-setting the decreasing talent pipeline and skills drain, leaders must pivot policies, procedures, and workplace culture to facilitate the new whole life career model to ensure future talent and benefit from the longevity advantage.
While living longer, healthier lives are to be celebrated, it also means that the work culture as we know it must change. A whole-life career approach emphasizes continuous learning adaptability. It encourages people of all ages to pursue varied career paths, take breaks for personal growth and re-enter the workforce with renewed purpose and passion.
The whole life career model is part of the longevity mindset advantage, an employee value proposition strategy that leverages workers across the age spectrum to meet talent requirements and sustain business success. If your company is challenged to attract and retain talent, a good look at policies and practices aimed at the youngest and oldest talent should give you a good indication of where to start. To mobilize, maintain and maximize all-aged talent, the first step requires a hard look at hiring, training, promotion and retention practices. If there are age gaps, you’ve found an opportunity.