The Power of 50+: Realising the full potential of your workforce

This week we are officially launching our Next-Up platform for all employees, Rethink Retirement. It’s been the most wonderful five or so years since we started Next-Up and we have learnt so much about the experienced generation, people aged over 50. Our thanks to the hundreds of people who have shared their stories and helped us shape this support.

Here we share what the platform is all about and why we created it – book a demo with us if you want to learn more. And as part of this, I want to share the insights for this generation – my first being that there is ageism around (which I used not to believe) but the opportunities for experienced people are huge.

Employers don’t know how to talk to employees about retirement

Was this the biggest shock of the last few years?  Possibly.  I remember talking to the Principal of a huge further education college, just before Covid.  He was bemoaning their skills shortages, the high turnover of college staff and coping with the skills gap.  Many will relate to this.

I asked him if they talked to people as they retired to see if they would work part-time – or any time. His face looked horrified and he was silent for what felt like several minutes. He then said “No, I hadn’t thought of this.”  It seemed a no-brainer at the time. However, as so much in life, it was more complicated than it sounds.

Since then I have talked to dozens of employers about their experienced workforce. It seems few organisations know to use the skills of retiring/unretired generations. The biggest issue is how do you talk to an employee about retirement without relating it to age – which of course is age discrimination and illegal. Few line managers are known for their comms skills so these conversations don’t happen.

On our platform, we suggest to employees that if they want to keep earning money after retirement then why not talk to their employer about this. Ask if they could work part-time or more flexibly.  We say that the skills shortage is a relatively new issue and employers may not have got round to offering flexibility – but be delighted if they ask. This makes it a proactive discussion from the employee, removing age discrimination risks.

There are few benefits for the experienced generation

I remember the first time I heard this.  A chief people officer, new to a large corporate group, told me she had been getting her head around the organisation.  She said, “Our benefits are really skewed to young people with a lot of benefits relating to having children. Examples are paid maternity and paternity leave; help with costs of childcare and fertility treatment and even paying for a woman’s eggs to be frozen. In contrast, the only benefits specifically for older employees are menopause and impotency support.”

I have used this quote a lot – it has great impact. As an aside, I notice men laugh in a rather embarrassed way at this – I guess menopause is now discussed everywhere, there is still little around the male equivalent.

When we first started talking about our platform for employees, a number said, “This would be great, we really need to start balancing up what we do for employees and the older generation is too often overlooked.”

Age discrimination is rife – but is even one employer worried?

This has seriously shocked me. Time and again, employers openly talk about how they are discriminating based on age, but no-one seems to think this qualifies as ‘age discrimination’ or seem in the least bit worried about being sued.

Examples I have heard are

• Recruiting – research by the Chartered Management Institute earlier this year produced the evidence for what most people know – recruiters would generally rather hire someone younger. The perception is experienced people are more expensive, difficult to manage/set in their ways, take time off for illness and don’t do tech (see the myth busters about much of this below)
• We train people when they join our company and in their early years, nothing really after about the age of 40, maybe younger
• Benefits are focused on young people (see above)
• We don’t measure engagement by age, we know older employees are really not that motivated in their jobs – and line managers don’t make much of an effort with older employees
• … and more

The 50+ generation is not one to make a fuss – not least, they don’t want to put their head above the parapet and be noticed and then made redundant. But I personally don’t think it will be long before a few employees get together and take their employers to court for discrimination. There is plenty of evidence to make their case.

Almost no organisation is really using the skills of their alumni

Not surprisingly, if most organisations are failing to recognise the value of their 50+ employees, then no-one is thinking how they can use their skills in unretirement.

We are working with professional firms to help partners plan for their retirement and beginning to see the massive turnaround if you inspire people before they leave. Instead of giving them a retirement present and dinner, if you give them ideas and skills to do different things next, then they can really flourish in the next stage of their life. One firm has seen a massive shift in the number of partners who engage with business (which can mean all sorts) in retirement.  Four years ago it was just 40%, now it is 90%.

I think that is probably representative of what organisations would see from all employees. One or two out of ten will still want to ‘retire’, but the rest are itching to do things – use their skills and be useful in some way, paid or unpaid. What a missed opportunity for their employers?

Experienced employees are FULL of opportunity – for everyone

One of the great joys of these last five years has been seeing just what our experienced generations can do and finding so much evidence to bust all these myths about age.  I particularly loved finding a guide by UK Hospitality on recruiting and retaining older employees and which busts so many myths.

• Older employees are HALF as likely to take sick days compared to younger; only a quarter of 50+ took time off in 2014 due to ill health compared to under half of 20-30s
• 91% of older workers want to progress in careers
• 70% of start-ups founded by older workers last longer than 3 years, compare to 28% started by younger
• Older employees retain information longer and have higher training rates than younger, combined with higher motivation and good attention spans

The fact that really hits you is 91% – ie, just about all older employees, want to progress in their careers. 

I listened to a very timely podcast by Avivah Wittenberg-Cox who interviewed Michael Fossatt about Schneider’s initiative for the over 50s. Back in 2021 they realised the skills gap would increase to a shortfall of 100m people by the end of that decade – from just the top 20 global economies. They also realised the 50+ generation could fill much of this, so they  launched Future-Ready to be way ahead of their competitors and ensure they retained and recruited this generation. They did a lot of research behind this and Michael essentially said, “Guess what these older employees want? It’s the same as the younger generations – they want career progression as much as anyone and to be valued.”

Why our Rethink Retirement platform could help your organisation

So, we come full circle.  We launched Next-Up because we saw so many people wanting to use their skills in retirement and having no idea what this could look like or how to go about ‘it’ – whatever it was. And employers with no idea about this generation or its issues.

Our platform is all about ideas and inspiration and helping employers to have difficult conversations.

In the pilots, we found the platform can actually re-energise this generation while they are still working. We suggest various things they can do in their last few years – such as getting involved in their organisation’s ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) initiatives.  This can help them build new connections, learn about new issues, use their skills in new and motivating ways – and could even provide ideas for later activities.

On our platform, Rethink Retirement, there are more than 200 video stories of people sharing what they are doing at this stage of life.  And loving life. Everything from running a B&B and helping dyslexic children in schools to helping charities, starting businesses and fulfilling lifetime dreams, such as volunteering overseas.  We show people how to work out what they might want to do and build a plan as they go.  It includes conversations with family – with a checklist of things they might want to discuss (whose domain is the kitchen?); how to be healthy at this next stage – it’s all about sleep; a checklist on finances but we ask people to go to experts for this; and then ways to get going and find things to do.  Purpose is key and we suggest ways to work out what this means for each individual.

Helping people to be actively engaged at this next stage of life and make new social connections will help employees have another ten years active life – and reduce the chance of Alzheimer’s by 2.5x. People can be net contributors to society at this stage of life, not a drain. That’s a heck of a contribution to your ESG goals.

To book a demo of the platform click here

And remember, one day this could be you!  You may think you just want to put your feet up, but for most, a happy unretirement has purpose in it as much as time to relax and enjoy family and friends.  Our platform helps you work out what that purpose might look like – as well as having conversations with your employers to create a great future for you and a great workforce for them.