Age is the new rage

Ageism continues to flourish as many baby boomers remain in the workforce. AARP’s latest research found that 90 percent of workers aged 50-plus have experienced some form of age discrimination at work. The top offences include being assumed to be less tech-savvy, labelled resistant to change, and passed over for training.

According to research by the Carnegie Endowment, 24.5 percent of South Koreans aged 70 and over remain in the workforce. By 2044, South Korea is projected to become the most aged country on Earth, its old-age dependency ratio climbing roughly 50 points by 2050—the steepest ascent in the OECD. South Korea is a preview, mind you. Unless you already live in South Korea, it’s coming for you, too. Demographics is just math, and that math is going to happen in the Unites States as well.

The issue that ought to keep every leader up at night is about wisdom.

APQC’s new “Great Retirement” study found that 92 percent of organizations have no consistent process for capturing the know-how of departing employees. More than 11,000 Americans turn 65 every single day, and an estimated 61 million Boomers will exit the workforce around the globe by 2030. Yet, nine in ten companies will walk a 30-year veteran to the lobby, hand them a goodbye card, give them a hug, and write down absolutely nothing that they know. The card receives more thought than the knowledge transfer.

Where does that leave us?

We need older workers in greater numbers than at any point in modern history, in part because the fertility rate has plummeted, and we don’t have (or will not have) enough young workers. We then discriminate against older workers at all times of the day. And we shrug as their wisdom exits the front door for the last time.

Have you asked yourself: what actually leaves the building when a long-term employee retires?

• Who inherits the judgment?
• Where do the workarounds live?
• Who recalls why your biggest client nearly bolted five years ago, and precisely what kept them from bolting?

If your answer is “it’s all in their head,” congratulations. You are part of the 92 percent who think the same way. That is not a good thing!

Age Debt

This is the compounding bill an organization runs up when it underinvests in its most experienced people while the demographic floor buckles. The same ledger, mercifully, holds an Experience Dividend—decades of judgment, relationships, and pattern recognition—available to any leader willing to treat wisdom as an asset worth reinvesting rather than one to be written off.

Korea’s septuagenarians are already showing up. The forecast for the rest of us calls for grey.

Source: adapted from a newsletter by Dan Pontefract, whose latest book, The Future of Work Is Grey digs further into this line of thinking.