Six reasons to hire older workers

Everyone wants flexible working these days, we’re told. From millennials with side hustles to parents and children of ageing parents. Yet when it comes to hiring, unconscious bias is still at work in businesses across the land. We look at why employers need to address workplace diversity with regards to ‘older’ workers.

Senior roles lead to workplace diversity

You’ll hear us championing part-time or flexible senior roles because these are the positions the large majority of Ten2Two Members are after. Yes, people want to earn money and do a job that fits around their circumstances, with manageable levels of stress, but they also want stimulating and rewarding work.

Returning mothers don’t want to do work that is beneath the level they have worked hard to achieve, just because they need flexibility to do it. Until UK business acknowledges this and more firms embrace greater workplace diversity, it seems the gender pay gap will continue to exist.

Here’s why ‘older’ workers are one group that should firmly be on the must-have recruitment list:

1. People with a long working life know what they want from a role – usually the ability to work in a stimulating and rewarding environment – so choose jobs they will stick with.
2. Older workers make productive and hardworking members of staff. They don’t need lots of training, have lots of life and work experience to bring to the role and understand and respond to business pressures intuitively.
3. Age doesn’t mean they’re more likely to go off sick any more than a younger member of staff.
4. Mature workers often have things at the top of their list other than promotion, favouring flexibility, environment and challenge so they aren’t going to ‘steal’ anyone’s job.
5. Mentoring and learning opportunities can arise from having workplace diversity. Younger workers can learn a lot from older ones and vice versa helping to improve talent retention rates.
6. Everyone is part of an ageing population. We will all be an older worker at some point. Isn’t it time we accepted that being overqualified is actually a benefit rather than a hindrance?

If you’d like to find productive, affordable staff for your business, walk this way. Please contact flexible recruitment agency Ten2Two today. We’d be happy to hear about your recruitment needs and see if we can help.