The Case for Aging Awareness

Did you know two people turn 65 every second, and the 65+ population will double in the next decade?

And yet, we're not addressing some of the critical issues around keeping these generations of older people active, involved, engaged, and part of a community, so they don't need any of the support that we always hear about. All we hear about seniors is that they're vulnerable, dependent, and a burden on society.

Without being further from the truth, argues Helen Hirsh Spence , whom I've had the honour of inviting onto the imperfect podcast .

Helen Hirsh Spence is an entrepreneur with expertise in education and learning, age diversity, inclusion, and intergenerational collaboration. Her former leadership experiences led her to a social enterprise called Top Sixty Over Sixty , which offers practical guidance on engaging an aging workforce, establishing high-functioning multi-generational teams, and creating an overall more substantial sales opportunity for aging customer segments.

What led to the passion and creation of the Top 60?

I was confronted with that horrible transition period between people seeking your opinion on various issues as a leader and becoming somewhat irrelevant and invisible. Once I left that position, that alone didn't bother me as much until I realized that it isn't just me; everybody in this generation is transitioning from one stage of life to another. It doesn't matter what it is, but they get lost, become unsure of themselves, and all of their skills, expertise, and knowledge sort of go out the window because they question their abilities as a result of how society deals with an aging population.

I confronted ageism myself. When I retired, I was pretty young, in my late 50s. I didn't realize retirement and didn't want to quit, but I didn't want to continue doing what I was doing, so I stopped working and oriented all my energy toward nonprofits. I worked with Jane Goodall as chair of her board for over ten years. And I had several different exciting travel adventures where I always worked, or rather, volunteered.

Then I decided I wanted to do something else. Some of my past students exposed me to social entrepreneurship and introduced me to the Social Innovation Center in Toronto. It opened my eyes to a whole different sector of social impact. And that's when I started digging in and figuring out, oh, I could do so much more. And then I, with various people helping me, decided I was going to do something about ageism, to try and raise awareness about all the possibilities that our aging population brings to the fore but are discredited because of our youth-centric society.

Do you feel that you're making a dent or seeing a shift in perception and ageism in the workforce?

Not yet, frankly! I mean, I think there's awareness. I called it Top 60 Over 60 because I wanted to draw attention to a generation of boomers who are older rather than younger, who still have lots of vitality. We're the best educated, most ethnically diverse, and healthiest generation ever, and yet, we're more or less discarded once we hit 60 or 65.

Ageism begins already at age 45. People are experiencing it at that point, thinking they're going to walk away at age 55. These people don't want to walk away; retirement is not what it was for our parents. People recognize that with a longer lifespan, they often have to work longer to finance it, but more importantly, they want to work, not necessarily in the same capacity.

Although ageism is one of the underlying challenges I'm helping organizations and individuals face, people are beginning to recognize it because that big bulge is coming through demographically. Helen Mirrens and others say don't talk about anti-wrinkles; that's insulting. Aging is something to be proud of and something to go for. So that is changing; it's not changing very fast, and it certainly isn't changing very quickly in businesses.

But I believe that in the next five years or so, the imperative will be there, and a larger cohort of older people being retained simply because they are a natural resource in Canada. They're sustainable because the population is getting older, it's not getting younger, and it won't for a long time. And we can't bring in enough immigrants. Due to COVID, we now have global talent converging on every business, so there's more competition. However, to prosper in Canada, we need to take advantage of the economic strength that older adults bring to the workforce.

How can age bias be overcome during the interview process?

The interview process is part of the bias but begins in the recruitment process. Studies have proven that the minute somebody recognizes that the individual is older, they'll get far fewer callbacks than somebody younger.

When I work with clients, HR, and other leaders, I like to audit everything around them. For example, what kind of images are they showing on their website? Let's say I'm going for an interview. I'll check out the website and all the information there. I'll look at the diversity and inclusion strategies or policies to learn more.

But it's very much the language that's used in interviews, the bias that you're not even aware of. So that's why I try to work with people to help them understand this bias's pervasive. By asking a question about experience, you could be knocking out older or younger employees because you say, for instance, you don't want more than ten years of experience or less than ten years of experience.

There are all sorts of expressions that we use. I'll give people examples of ads that look pretty innocuous; however, when you dig slightly deeper, you'll realize that there's a bias there, but you wouldn't have seen it. Somebody might approach you and say, gee, you look great for your age. That sounds like a compliment, but really, it's a backhanded insult in that what is your age supposed to look like? We're focused on chronology and not on individuals' attributes to the various roles.

Some more examples that I have heard from working with various leaders:

Are you sure you can handle this job? It takes a lot of energy and enthusiasm, and we're looking for someone with career potential. You don't need this training at your age. What would the benefit be?

What are some common facts we don't realize about the aging population?

I spend much time debunking myths. Research has proven that older adults take less time off, are more productive, and are more innovative than younger colleagues. They have different values and belief systems. I'm not suggesting for a moment that they're better than other generations. It's just that when they complement other generations, it makes for a robust workforce.

People also think that older people can't learn as quickly. There's this misguided belief that you can't understand technology. Well, the fastest growing group of people who have adopted technology are over 65, something like 150%. It's huge. And 70% of those people use technology daily.

As with me, learning some of those platforms may take a little bit longer, but I can do it. And I know I can do it. But the big problem is believing that I can do it. And that's why when I work with individuals, either through coaching or with some of the coursework we do, that's where the emphasis has to be because people have lost their self-agency.

They have bought into that unconscious myth that they're not capable after a while. Brain research has shown that we can rewire our brains and do it all the time. There's brain research on memory and how we can still increase memory.

There's so much misrepresentation of what it means to be older. The other big problem is the fault of many in HR. They do not invest in their aging workforce. If they were to train or give the same amount of training even as they approach 60 or 65, things would be different. There's so much that HR could do to be more diverse and more inclusive without diminishing productivity or the business case, which is precisely the antithesis of what people think. Because of the aging demographic, a ton of research proves that, but people don't know it yet. They keep on going in the same direction.

The leaders in these businesses and companies have to understand it too. And very often, they are older, white men. They have that privilege but don't necessarily see it's valid for others. It's hilarious, but I think it'll change, slowly but surely, out of necessity. I want to help people and talent management understand how they can get ahead of the game now.

That's an exciting and very challenging conversation. It doesn't have to do with ageism; it just has to do with recognizing strength. The minute you bring up the word age or ageism, everybody shies away and doesn't want anything to do with you because they know about the laws and the legal implications. And they're scared, and rightly so, because there've been huge cases against businesses for being discriminatory. But there are ways that you can include people meaningfully and also get rid of the dead wood that you don't want to have.

What imperfections do you feel that you bring to your heart-centered leadership?

I don't want to dodge the question, but I want to add one thing because you said something significant about older adults having experience. They have life experience, and what I didn't know, except through the research I've done, is that experience trumps knowledge and skill. Those skills that we bring, they're skills that complement a younger generation, and when you put the two together, it's a dynamite duo.

So imperfections, I didn't think about this in advance because I forgot. I can't tell you any perfections I bring to the leadership. I'm very idealistic, perhaps too idealistic. I thought when I started this in my late 60s that everyone would get it, and I have found out the hard way that they don't, so that's been hard on me because I thought it was so obvious, but now I realize what I'm involved in is like an awareness campaign of all the issues around aging.

And that's not easy to do. I work more or less alone. And I have had a colleague working with me for about two and a half years. She's taken on another role now, but I have somebody else working with me who's also terrific. But I'm pretty much on my own. I've had to learn so much, many things that I am intimidated by initially, and then I remember no, I can do this, but it takes me longer. And I must understand that I didn't grow up with all these digital competencies I could use.

My passion has been working with older adults and helping them realize their unconscious bias, which is holding them back. So I created a program called Reset, supported by the Ontario Center of Workforce Innovation in Ryerson. It was about identifying the self-directed ageist belief system that impedes older adults from having an entrepreneurial mindset.

The imperfections are probably very much that I launched into something without fully understanding the implications of every aspect of what I was doing. And hoping and working towards a goal that I continue to work towards, but I'm not there. There're so many things that I have done incorrectly and imperfectly, and they've all led me to learn that much more. So, absolutely no regrets, but it's like doing a Ph.D. in learning through failure.