Older workers are just the job
HOW do you envisage your retirement?
Perhaps the plan is to sit in the garden admiring your dahlias and watching the grandkids? Maybe the dream is to buy a caravan and take off exploring the highways and byways?
Or maybe you just relish the thought of turning over in bed on a wet Monday morning instead of heading off into the nine to five grind?
What I suspect you didn’t imagine your retirement would involve was being harangued by government ministers to put down that garden trowel, road map or early morning brew and return to work.
I am not yet at an age where retirement is a prospect. However, I am at an age where I find myself shouting at the radio and my profanity levels reached new heights when I heard the Chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, urging older people to get back into the workplace.
“Britain needs you!” he exclaimed, concerned that there are about 300,000 fewer people in employment today compared to pre-pandemic. The PM has been at it too, instructing the older population that “there’s more to life than golf”.
How cheeky. How patronising. And how utterly out of touch.
Because here’s the thing. There are plenty of older people who want to work. It’s just that nobody wants to employ them.
A recent survey of more than 1,000 managers across the country found less than half were open to giving jobs to people aged 50 – 64.
It’s 2023 but I’m afraid ageism is alive and well,
Yet older workers can be a huge asset, bringing skills which younger people just don’t have – life experience, knowledge, wisdom, corporate memory.
They are also loyal. A 25-year-old will inevitably move jobs. At 55? Not so much. A few enlightened employers recognise this but for far too many others, older workers are placed in the file marked ‘too much trouble’.
And yes, there are challenges. People in their late 40s onwards may have caring responsibilities – grandkids, elderly relatives – so might only be able to work parttime or restricted hours.
They may require training to come back up to speed or patience as they take a little longer to master the new IT system.
But invest in them and the rewards will come.
There’s another story here, too, and that’s about those who don’t want to return to work or simply can’t.
I’m talking about people who have saved hard, worked hard, and earned the right to put their feet up. Their country needed them for 40 years and they delivered.
Or those who have had a lifetime of manual labour or 12 hour shifts and physically can’t go back to that.
They’re not playing golf – they’re just trying to get by
It’s all very well government ministers prodding us to ditch retirement and re-join the ranks of the employed, but it’s just not as simple as that.
I have an idea though – why don’t some of these ministers retire?
And let someone who knows what they’re doing tackle the job.