Aging Like a Fine Wine

This week I'm doing a special request. Someone asked me to write about this topic as it's one that's impacted them personally.

It's often the elephant in the room. Jobseekers of a certain vintage often find it very hard to secure new positions. It's illegal to make hiring decisions based on age but it happens. In fact, age shouldn't even come up, but people look through CVs, do the maths themselves, and go on to make decisions and judgments based on this.

The industry feels that older people have less to offer and are less driven, but there are plenty of younger people who lack drive as well. Many older people, who could have stopped working long ago, having paid off their mortgages, continue to work because they genuinely love what they do. Who would you rather hire: someone who loves what they do and does it when they don't have to, or someone who's just there for the paycheque?

People are living and working longer than ever before. The state pension age is currently 66 but will increase again in 2026; we're moving to a point where someone will reach 60 but will then have 10 years still before they can draw their pension.

According to the Construction Skills Network in 2023, we'll need 225,000 new construction workers by 2027. The prediction is that level of shortfall, which we're very unlikely to fill, will massively hurt the economy.

In an industry that is as skill-short as construction and civil engineering, can we afford to discard valuable knowledge and experience? Here are just a few ways older people add value to the workforce:

You can't beat experience and know-how. Think of all the projects and scenarios they've seen good and bad and the experience that gives them. As a bonus, think about how much your junior people could learn from them being mentored.

Something else to consider is depth of experience people of a certain vintage have. Looking at literally thousands of CVs over the years I'm really aware of the time older people spent in the early part of their career getting a solid grounding BEFORE they were promoted.

Not wishing to dig anyone out but the Senior QS with 5 years experience didn't happen back in the day.

If you hire someone who's over 55, they're statistically more unlikely to want to move again. Over two-thirds (69%) of 55-year-old workers have been with their employer for more than five years, and then only 4% move within a year. The average employment tenure in our industry is 3 years and so you're virtually guaranteed to get double or maybe even triple that tenure with an older employee. (Source: Institute of Fiscal Studies)

I don't want to stereotype here, but younger people sometimes need reminding that work isn't an annoying encumbrance on their social life. Equally, people in early middle age raising young families often struggle to balance home and work life (I know all about this as a new Dad). Older people won't have these issues. They're probably mortgage-free and their kids may well have flown the nest, allowing them to be more focussed at work.? ? ? ?

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?Statistically, older employees take fewer sick days.

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Older employees tend to have a stronger work ethic and need less support.

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Decades in the industry mean they'll likely have a network of contacts someone couldn't possibly accumulate in a shorter space of time.

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Been there, done that, got the t-shirt. Being professionally comfortable in your own skin having seen and done the lot can't be faked and it gives people confidence.?

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Some customers enjoy dealing with people who've got the experience and are demonstrably a safe pair of hands

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With some job disciplines, like estimating, you won't have a choice. Most of the good Estimators I know are at least in their mid-50s. So, if you want to hold out and wait for a younger model you might be waiting a good while.

Listing all these reasons we have to ask ourselves why we're not doing more to attract and retain older people. Looking at what's happening skills-wise now and in the future, we can't afford not to.