Major sporting events tend to bring out the blogger in all of us. And sporting events, with one Olympian exception, don’t come any larger than the World Cup. Amongst the Kanes, the Ronaldos and the Messis, one name that has, in all likelihood, inspired slightly less editorial is Sergey Ignashevich. Potentially not even a household name within his own household, Sergey is the 38 year old who was brought out of retirement to play in the Russian team for the tournament, in the face of some distinctly poor results prior to the World Cup. I suspect that Sergey would be the last to claim he has single-handedly turned around Russian fortunes but, with him in the side, they stand at played two, won two.
And sport is not generally kind to its more mature participants. For every Nadal and Federer, there are plenty who cannot cope with the competition of younger, fitter, stronger participants. The dying of the light extinguishes the fire in most sports professionals.
What’s the learning, then, for talent acquisition?
It’s worth perhaps pausing for some labour market context at this point. Most of these blogs throw up metrics which tend to support a firming employment landscape. Not surprisingly, this won’t be an exception.
The latest Jobs Outlook from the REC again hints at the challenges talent acquisition faces. Its monthly report suggests that 50% of UK employers are concerned about the availability of permanent candidates. Whilst we might instinctively feel this figure might be higher, context is demonstrated by the fact that the figure is 8 percentage points higher today than 12 months ago. And for those employers seeking temporary hires, 66% are concerned about candidate supply, up from just 32% last year.
No massive surprise, then, that REC’s director of policy, Tom Hadley, suggests, “We want the UK jobs market to remain a success story, but we must act now to address looming challenges that will impact on both demand and supply of staff.”
With unemployment down to 4.2%, more than 32m in the workforce (a rise of more than 440,000 over the last 12 months) and employment up to a record high of 75.6%, I am pretty confident that no one reading this piece has had to recruit in a more challenging market.
Except, in all likelihood, for the jobs market next month and then the month following that.
So how to address the looming – or, indeed, loomed – challenges that Hadley refers to? Diversity and inclusivity are clear solutions. Looking at candidate audiences which have been ignored or certainly ill-catered for in the past has been a key theme of the talent acquisition landscape for a generation. Organisations have, in many cases, worked hard to ensure they are increasingly more attractive and welcoming to candidates regardless of gender, ethnicity, sexuality, culture and social background.
But age? I wonder.
There are some interesting initiatives taking shape. But not necessarily too close to home.
In Germany, the car giant, Daimler, is working hard to break down employment stereotyping around age through a major exhibition as well as work to enhance co-operation between generations. Daimler, and Germany’s, problem is marked. The average age of its workforce is over 44. And the overall German working population is due to shrink by 2m as baby boomers retire from the workforce.
Daimler is not alone. SAP has introduced a ‘mature talents’ program which encourages two-way mentoring between older workers and their younger colleagues. BMW estimates that by 2020, 35% of its workforce will be 50 and over. That figure was just 25% in 2014.
That this is an issue impacting the UK workforce is not in doubt. Two major government initiatives in the past week point to the influence of our ageing population. With the Home Office exempting overseas doctors from entry caps and the government committing to a £20bn funding boost for the NHS, it is clear that an ageing population will bring both a lower workers to retirees ratio and greater demands on the health service.
This coincides with some hugely insightful research from PWC on the subject. They estimate that the UK could raise GDP by an annual £180bn through increasing the proportion of over-55 year olds in work. We rank globally 21 out of 35 in this respect, some way behind front runners New Zealand and Israel. PWC terms the potential associated with retaining more older workers within the economy as ‘an economic prize’.
But right now, there is much stacked against what feels like an obvious initiative, particularly given the demands of the current employment market.
In the hurry to make use (and be seen to make use) of the likes of Insta and Snapchat, how likely are recruitment messages to be seen by older job seekers or changers?
With an increasing number of roles calling for degrees, does this rule out many more mature workers? (if around 40% of today’s 18 year olds are going on to university, the figure was just 13% when this older worker entered higher education).
Are employee value propositions sufficiently targeted in order to attract the over 50s? Or are they designed with millennial audiences in mind? What sort of imagery is used to attract a broad demographic and does it feel inclusive around age? Further to this, what sort of research and insights do organisations possess to fully understand the drivers and motivations of those mature candidates? Is such attraction targeting either non-existent or based on assumption and guesswork?
Whereas organisations are working harder and harder to offer flexibility for parents within their workforces, are they showing similar adaptability for older workers having to look after either ageing parents or ailing spouses?
Does the now cacophony of noise around AI intimidate and deter older would-be applicants?
And does such assumption exist too in the mind’s eye of older workers? Do more mature candidates take it as read that employers are losing interest in their skill sets to concentrate on those in their 20s?
If we Google invisibility among older demographics, search results tend to focus on women and perceptions that they stop being ‘noticed’. But what if older workers become similarly invisible?
What if, too, the issue of ageism itself has become invisible within the workplace? Happily, much progress has been made around addressing sexism, racism and homophobia at work – has the focus on these important areas, however, pushed ageism into the shade?
Slightly more than a year ago, a powerful group of employers, including Barclays, Boots, Aviva and the Co-op pledged to publish regular data about the age profile of their workforces with an aim of recruiting 12% more over 50s by 2022. This in response to both the talent pool threat of Brexit and the statistic that 14.5m people are forecast to retire between 2012 and 2022 in the UK, with only 7m people due to enter the workforce.
Interestingly, I have been unaware of subsequent progress with this important initiative.
Just as there is clear evidence that western sounding names (as opposed to those with overseas associations) on CVs are more likely to result in interviews, research from Anglia Ruskin University in 2015 uncovered the same challenges for older applicants. Two sets of applications were made to 2,000 job ads. The CVs demonstrated the same broad skill sets, education and interests. One set of applications purported to be from a 50 year old, the other from a 28 year old. The more mature applicant was four times less likely to secure an interview than their younger counterpart.
Ironically, given that all of us will become older workers at some point in our lives, considerations around age within the workplace feel less embedded than those relating to gender, sexuality and ethnicity. To the point where key commentators are simply dismissive of age – Mark Zuckerberg in 2007 was quoted as saying, ‘Old people, you know, over 30, are just, well, a little slow. Young people are just smarter’.
(Given that he recently celebrated his 34th birthday, I wonder if he regrets such a statement?).
From both a retention and engagement perspective – given the various generations within the workplace today – as well as attraction, there is so much to be gained from organisations clearly, actively and genuinely going out to attract older audiences.
Older audiences who have the opportunity of dropping their invisibility cloak and becoming one answer to the western world’s growing demographic employment challenge.
If only they were made aware of such an opportunity.
Getting to the heart of your employee mindset 