Why Older Employees Are Your Biggest Untapped Resource

Author: Soniya Bhakodia

Employees. They're the one thing that businesses everywhere have a need for. And not just employees, but employees who are honest, responsible, dependable, loyal, focused, organized and mature.

Is this too much to ask?

So where can businesses find a dependable, steady workforce that has no plans to move up and out? A workforce dedicated to the job at hand and that takes pride in its work? Who will cost them less to hire, train and maintain?

The answer?  Older workers.

Why Older Employees Are Your Biggest Untapped Resource

Companies already know how to shed mature workers through early retirement programs. But they don’t know how to recruit or retain them. Why bother until we need them, right? Wrong- for following reasons:

§  Strong Work Ethic. Years of practice have shown older workers that there are no shortcuts to quality. Some managers report that their mature workers spend less time surfing the Web, checking their personal e-mail, playing with their cell phones, and stretching their lunch hours .And I am sure as an HR manager you will Love this attitude that they will not surf on net and specially not Facebook, Right?

§  Punctuality. Older workers tend to take their jobs more seriously. That translates to looking forward to work and arriving on time, ready to work.

§  Focus and Attention. Experience brings a sense of focus and attention to details that matter. Generally, older workers know the points of weakness in the documentation process. They know how much time it takes to do which steps and they plan accordingly. This contributes to the quality of your company’s work. This will save the time as well isn’t it?

§  Stability. Once hired, older workers usually choose to stay at a job longer, which will save you time and money finding, hiring and training new staff. I would like to give my 100% vote here because I know where I am working now one of my colleague in HR is really bored of finding and hiring new YOUNG employees because they stay with company only for limited time.

§  , Older workers stay at the company almost three times longer than others. They are very responsible. They care about the customers. They’re good example to our younger employees. They also relate well to older customers, who trust more experienced employees,

§  A company cannot develop a reputation that will attract the most talented mature workers overnight. You must adjust the policies and practices of hiring and retiring, and develop an environment that clearly welcomes and values mature workers.

Most mature were corn in the 1940s, through the oldest are children of the Great depression and the youngest, of the baby boom. They tend to define success from the outside in, with wealth and status as indicators of success, though they are most likely to describe success in life as” being true to myself and not selling out”

As we go ahead in HR field, we need to keep in mind some points about the mature cohort. Like workers of all ages, mature wants to continue improving their skills and sketching their talents, but companies continually overlooks them for training and development, with retirement on the horizon. Big Mistake. To expand the contribution of theses experienced workers, ask them to serve as trainers, coaches, and mentors, instead of hiring outside consultants. Because they may cost you lacks and lacks of rupees where you can save that cost here.

            IN the short term, you can fill the skills gap and establish yourself as the employer of choice for the multigenerational labor market in the not-so-distant future.

So we (HR) should concentrate on how you should change some of your current HR policies and practices to incorporate mature workers into your workforce strategy and establish your own reputation as a senior friendly work environment.

Whether they are 65 or 70+, older workers help provide you with an experienced workforce. As long as their desire to work is present and, depending on the worker, Why I like this topic is because I think that we (HR) should always get maximum out form an individual because that is why we are paying them. And Mature Workers can really help company with his experience in his life.