Robin Hoyle is a writer, trainer and consultant. He is the author of Complete Training: from recruitment to retirement and Informal Learning in Organizations; how to create a continuous learning culture both published by Kogan Page. Robin will be chairing the World of Learning Conference at the NEC on 19th and 20th October, 2016.
Last week saw a performance of Anniversary at West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds. This contemporary dance and theatre piece was devised and performed by a group of actors and dancers all over 50.
One of the performers was pushing 90 years old.
As a community piece there is nothing that remarkable about a group of older people being involved in something creative – theatre companies have been working on reminiscence pieces and storytelling with retired people for years.
But what caught my attention – and I’m sure the attention of many – was their involvement in contemporary dance.
For people of this age to be involved in something as physically active as a dance performance – along with months of rehearsal and choreography – was notable.
As soon as you start to look you see all sorts of other remarkable stories of older people continuing to undertake activities which would be beyond the physical limits of many younger folk.
The 100-year-old marathon runner Fauja Singh from Ilford, the 97 year old body builder who only took up competitive bodybuilding aged 85 and last week a South Yorkshire man completed 75 marathons in 75 days to celebrate his 75th birthday.
These feats of physical prowess by older people surely suggest a different way of viewing older workers.
A few years ago, when I started looking at the changing demographics of the workplace, the academic articles and stories in the business press were all about adapting the workplace to an ageing population, dealing with age time-bomb of a significant number of ‘baby-boomers’ retiring and the attendant anxiety about the loss of expertise which would follow this age-related exodus.
But these feats of physical prowess by older people surely suggest a different way of viewing older workers.
We already know that many will need to work longer than they expected. Retiring in the early to mid-60s is just not an option for many whose pension pot is inadequate.
Nor is it sensible for the organisations which employ them. Losing that experience and expertise is bound to damage many organisations. There should be an active desire to keep these physically fit and mentally active older people in work.
But there doesn’t seem to be much joined up thinking about retaining and maintaining those over 50 in the workplace.
Recent OECD statistics show that in the UK over a one third of those aged 55 – 64 were not in employment in Q4 2015.
There are a number of reasons for this. For some it is voluntary – they have saved, invested well and are now entering their third age freed from work responsibilities.
Retiring in the early to mid-60s is just not an option for many whose pension pot is inadequate.
But for many more this is a result of workplace policies and recruitment programmes which favour youth and discriminate against older workers – especially those who are more expensive to employ having reached the top of their pay scale.
Younger people who are expected to be more easily trained and energetic are favoured, despite the evidence of those remarkable seniors who are doing great things outside employment.
One area where this discrimination is especially clear is in training and development activities.
A couple of years ago I did a very unscientific survey amongst around 30 L&D people during a webinar about training older workers.
The vast majority – more than two thirds – did not have any kind of policy or strategy for training older workers.
Only a handful of those involved had planned activities specifically targeted at workers over 50 and only one had actually implemented focused programmes for this group.
This seems to me to fly in the face of logic. Older people potentially have much to give.
Not investing in the continued development of the skills of older workers is simply illogical.
(I am desperately trying to avoid generalisations – I know some older people who have all kinds health problems associated with ageing – but these challenges are no more universal than so-called millennials are all values driven digital natives. To quote Oscar Wilde: “all generalisations are wrong, including this one”. )
More importantly, given the trends related to pensions and the difficulty in moving jobs as an older worker, the chances are that these individuals will be with you for a long time.
Much longer, in fact, than younger workers who will be more likely to move jobs regularly as they progress in their careers.
Not investing in the continued development of the skills of older workers is simply illogical.
But do older workers require special L&D treatment or even special programmes?
Not always, obviously. If the whole company or department are getting involved in a new initiative, process or using new equipment, then similar learning will be needed for workers of all ages.
But in respect of other skills and desired behaviours, there will be an ocean of experience which should be tapped into.
I have often argued that one size doesn’t fit all in L&D programmes – put simply we should be tailoring our L&D approaches to meet the specific needs of individuals across age ranges and experience levels.
As Eliot Maisie said on a Learning NowTV programme in 2015, “one size fits one”.
As an example, imagine you have a customer service programme for staff. In many organisations this will look at how important a personal relationship is between company and customer.
There would be a different discourse about what a personal relationship might look like and feel like for those who remember knowing their name of their bank manager.
In contrast, those whose experience of customer service is exclusively based on their relationship with an algorithm may have a very different level of understanding.
This is also underlined by the finding of other OECD research published in 2013.
In “All in it together” the OECD argues that there is a very different pattern of employment for older workers in contrast to their younger colleagues.
They are not – as has been thought in the past – substitutes who crowd out younger people from the workforce – but complements, doing different jobs in different ways.
The opposite of the belief that older people compete with younger workers would seem to be the case.
Economies with a larger number of older workers have a greater number of employment opportunities for younger workers as the economy benefits overall and welfare budgets are not swallowed up by supporting retirees.
The OECD and others interested in older workers and their role in employment have produced a slew of statistics about productivity, capability and longevity.
They all point to an inescapable fact that older workers are worth investing in and should continue to be trained.
Economies with a larger number of older workers have a greater number of employment opportunities for younger workers
For one thing, many older workers will be at work for two more decades and could, feasibly, change career completely and still have time to make an impact.
Experience from the Netherlands in a 2014 OECD report strongly suggests on the job, informal learning offers the best opportunities for harnessing and extending the capabilities of older people.
Rather than the focus of informal learning being on digital natives and ‘millenials’ maybe we should be encouraging older workers to get more involved in their own learning and then validating these experiences.
This informal learning probably needs some support to be valued both by the older workers and the organisations which employ them. Continuing Professional development processes for all workers over 45 make sense.
Despite performance appraisals recently falling out favour, done well and reflecting on what people could do to learn new skills or experience new things, they can add value.
Many older workers will be at work for two more decades and could, feasibly, change career completely.
And despite statistics showing that older workers are significantly less likely to be involved in training activities there is also significant evidence that training which is particularly tailored to older workers does work.
Where the learning is task related, self -paced and uses a wide range of different learning methods, older workers can develop novel skills at a similar rate, and with similar long term retention and behaviour change, as their younger colleagues.
Self-interest alert...
I’m 54 years of age. Over the last year I have participated in several MOOCs, learned how to use three new pieces of software and developed my skills in other technology I use regularly.
I have attended conferences and webinars – funding my involvement myself. I have learned new things and I have enjoyed having my beliefs challenged by insights provided by others – some my age and older, others younger.
We oldies can learn and are often hungry to do so. I need to keep learning and keep working. Apart from anything else, I couldn’t run a marathon if you paid me and my skills as a dancer are severely limited!
