A study by the UK advocacy group Age Without Limits found that it’s not just a few people who think older people aren’t worth hiring. Fully 24 percent believe this. And 22 percent of respondents think it’s a waste of time to train someone older than 50, and 32 percent believe people become less competent with technology as they age.
The study also found that people who had higher educational qualifications were more likely to think that people over 50 weren’t worth training. In other words, people who are more likely to be in management positions are more likely to think that it’s a waste of time and money to higher older workers.
To keep reading, click here: Study: 1 in 4 Think It’s a Waste of Money to Hire Those Over 50
I thoroughly enjoyed reading your blog post about hiring older people in the workplace. It was interesting to see the study’s results demonstrated that 24% of companies believed that older people aren’t worth hiring. As mentioned in the post it is illegal to discriminate against workers based on age just like race and sex. I also never realized how many cases are handled by the EEOC because of age discrimination. I think it’s important that most successful and wealthy people are older. I think of Elon Musk and how he was 28 when he first started Tesla. He wasn’t on the older scale, but he was also not “young”. There are people like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and many more who have started these big-name brands at a young age. Some older people are willing and excited to learn all about the new technology age and how it works. However, I would like to know if companies spend more money on training someone older than someone younger based on the lack of knowledge of modern-day technology. I think it’s crucial for companies to view their HR as an investment and, to do this they need to keep up with the external environment. In the end, a company will decide who will better the company by aligning themselves to the company’s goals and objectives.
I know I personally had a terrible time in my 20’s and 30’s dealing with technologically inept 50 somethings who made life harder for everyone around them by not understanding email or calendars.
But as I get older I also see that training is terrible and only getting worse and you don’t know what you don’t know.
I’ve also seen the impact of changing existing technology geared towards young users. It’s even gone as far as to change the name of existing technology and act like it’s new but if you don’t know the modern term for the process you are quickly left behind (voice texts comes to mind, it’s just a voicemail people!). However if I don’t know the term for a voice text and I’m trying to fix my voicemail I’m not going to see the most up to date instructions or articles on that because I don’t know the modern jargon of the technology.
There also is the shifting baseline of how we like to learn. As an older millennial I like to read articles online and see step by step pictures. Gen Z would rather read the AI synopsis or watch a video. As fewer people create old school blog style articles then my ability to learn new things is also hampered since I can no longer learn using my preferred method. Once something is made harder for folks, a lot of people stop doing it.
It’s a vicious and complex cycle.
My observation has been older workers are not averse to tech, they just don’t always trust it. I see tech as a tool. Tools are supposed to make work/life easier & more efficient. If I need to do 2 hours of prep and programming to save 15 minutes, what good is it? The tool is now just a toy. Just because tech does something faster does not make it better. Programming errors can be efficiently and quickly propagated into lots of waste. The Gen Xers sit quietly as a new product is introduced thinking about what will happen when it breaks down. It always breaks down eventually. The manpower necessary to recover after downtime may increase by 2 to 3 times. Finally, I have noticed the end user is not always given the opportunity to evaluate new tech before it is purchased. Older workers may not be “cool”, but they know how to get a job done.