The belief that younger professionals cost less because they lack experience, and tend to be more up to date, is one of the barriers to different generations working alongside each other.
A good number of companies have rethought their practices when it comes to hiring older workers. Others, less so. Recruiters and decision-makers need to set aside the assumption that older people are inflexible, out of touch with technology or resistant to change.
With that in mind, here are 4 benefits of hiring people over 45 for your company.
1 - More experience
Market experience still brings maturity to decision-making.
Having someone who has already lived through different scenarios is a real strategic advantage. People with more mileage can read where the market is heading, which makes it possible to anticipate problems and suggest creative ways of handling them.
Market experience also brings maturity to decision-making. Because the professional is more experienced, their decisions naturally take into account things that are less obvious to younger colleagues.
Having that profile on your team gives you confidence that decisions will factor in what matters and will not be made without solid grounding in the business.
2 - Leadership ability
Many professionals over 45 have developed strong interpersonal communication skills.
Successes and mistakes accumulated over a career tend to make an older professional a strong leadership figure. What they have been through means they can act with more precision and give their team clear direction.
Professionals over 45 come from a time when communication did not run through email, apps or video calls. Many developed strong interpersonal communication skills as a result, which makes them good leaders and managers, particularly compared with people just entering the workforce.
Younger professionals often dream of rapid progression, moving between jobs fairly readily. For companies, beyond the disruption to expectations, the cost of that churn shows up in day-to-day operations. It tends not to happen with older workers.
People with more professional experience and more years behind them tend to know what they want, and to know that finding a new position is not straightforward. Hiring older people therefore delivers benefits across different parts of the business, from valuing diversity to strategic decision-making.
3 - Drive and professionalism
Professionals over 45 tend to be more committed to deadlines and schedules.
There is no need to put older people in simpler roles. Most of them like learning new things, including complicated ones involving modern technology.
Give them a supervisor willing to teach the tricks and shortcuts of a new organisation and they will take the opportunity to broaden what they know.
Professionals over 45 also tend to be more committed to deadlines and schedules. They rarely run late, since punctuality is a value this age group takes seriously. Ethics tends to run through their work too, and is one of this generation's real strengths.
4 - Diversity
An older workforce brings a range of benefits to companies.
Diversity has stopped being a differentiator and become a standing, non-negotiable item on the corporate agenda. By hiring professionals across a range of ages, a company positions itself in the market as a champion of diversity and encourages the exchange of experience and perspective.
Over the course of a career it is normal to meet people from different fields and different companies. For anyone working in business development, that matters enormously. Many older hires bring a substantial network with them, and can open important and varied connections for your company.
An older workforce brings a range of benefits. Experience accumulated over the years, much of it before the digital era, can bring a different eye to today's problems.
Hiring professionals over 45 therefore delivers real benefits to your company. Your brand also comes to be seen as in step with the times and as a champion of generational diversity.
So on your next round of hiring, encourage your HR team to look more closely at the CVs sent in by older candidates. Plenty of talent can be rediscovered that way, and your company stands to gain recognition for the social role it will be playing.