Age Bias is Still the Default at Work But the Data is Turning (stanford.edu)
- Reference: 0180760490
- News link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/26/02/09/1413223/age-bias-is-still-the-default-at-work-but-the-data-is-turning
- Source link: https://longevity.stanford.edu/why-more-companies-are-recognizing-the-benefits-of-keeping-older-employees/
AARP and OECD data back this up at the firm level: a 10-percentage-point increase in workers above 50 correlates with roughly 1.1% higher productivity. A 2022 Boston Consulting Group study found cross-generational teams outperform homogeneous ones. UK retailer B&Q staffed a store largely with older workers in 1989 and saw profits rise 18%. BMW implemented 70 ergonomic changes at a German plant in 2007 and recorded a 7% productivity gain. Yet an Urban Institute analysis of U.S. data from 1992 to 2016 found more than half of workers above 50 were pushed out of long-held jobs before they chose to retire.
[1] https://longevity.stanford.edu/why-more-companies-are-recognizing-the-benefits-of-keeping-older-employees/
LOL yeah right (Score:2)
"Makes them harder to justify it".
They don't *need* to justify it. They just do it, probably mostly reflexively now. It's not like they are going to get sued because they would never say "age" is the reason they aren't hiring someone.
Expensive and reminder of death (Score:2)
There are two main drivers of age bias:
1) The conscious, economic one.
Experienced workers cost more. While experience can generate efficiency gains, those gains rarely show up on a balance sheet after the first year. The loss of that institutional knowledge only becomes visible later—often when organizations end up rebuilding or reinstalling the very systems they dismantled.
2) The subconscious, psychological one.
Older people remind younger colleagues of aging and mortality, which creates
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3) Older people make younger people more cynical, faster.
They put up with no shit, call bullshit bullshit in public and don't kowtow to stupidity. This does not sit well many managers.
No they cost more and don't always do more (Score:2)
> There are two main drivers of age bias: 1) The conscious, economic one. Experienced workers cost more. While experience can generate efficiency gains, those gains rarely show up on a balance sheet after the first year. The loss of that institutional knowledge only becomes visible later—often when organizations end up rebuilding or reinstalling the very systems they dismantled.
It's simple...pay more and get more?....good deal. Pay more and get less?....bad deal. If you're well paid, you need to deliver. You can't do the same output you did when you were 25 and 1/3 the cost. You have to produce higher quality work. I'm old AF myself. I am aware that I need to not only deliver high quality, but be someone they can rely on. My peers who chose to coast on their experience and not take schedules seriously?...they were laid off in the last round of layoffs.
Just because you're
Maybe it's more about weeding out. (Score:2)
My observation is that the population groups are different between young and old workers.
It's not that individual older workers are more productive in any way, but rather that the young cohort contains all the people who will become drunks, drug users, who bring their sex problems to works, who steal and so on.
The young people who are not fucked up are often amazing, but the worthless ones cause more problems and bring others down, so on the average productivity is damaged.
The worthless old ones who have jo
Its harder to bully older people (Score:2)
We've seen and heard all the BS and veiled threats from various pointy hairs over the decades and its water off a ducks back. They can't handle that, particularly if they're young with large egos.
Age Bias is Still the Default at Work But ARE Data (Score:2)
showing my age by correcting grammar. you damn kids! get off my lawn!
... But the Data ARE turning (Score:1)
old AF! didn't realize the character limit on the comment subject. i'm such a boomer.
Don't be too smug (Score:3)
In British English data is singular, not plural.
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cheerio, old chap!
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Is it prounced dah-tah or day-tah?
Or maybe even day-tur if you enjoy intrusive rhotacism.
Because that's the only factor (Score:1)
Who refuses to learn anything new and keeps clicking on phishing emails? Because at my last 2 companies it's really one age demographic almost exclusively. There are more factors than what are stated in this biased article.
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You've had ten more years to watch and learn. It's not generational. It's just how people are and how our perceptions of one another change as we age. I see plenty of lazy shits at every age bracket and hard workers at every age bracket. All in the same building.
They don't want that... (Score:2)
> putting peak overall functioning between ages 55 and 60.
They don't want too much experience as they also have the experience to recognize the leverage they hold, demand appropriate compensation, and not put up with abuse that more inexperienced people will take.
I have seen time and time again companies faced with two possible paths forward, one that will work and will work better, and even frequently cheaper, *but* some key people will become "indispensable", and that risk is so high they will do all kinds of things to avoid it. Basically, if you become too goo
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The general practise now that "Human Resources" runs the world seems to be to deskill the work as much as possible so people become interchangeable cogs.
That also means your organization goes to shit because no-one knows anything but at least they don't have to worry about "Bob The Guy Who Knows Everything" getting hit by a bus.
Not my experience (Score:2)
When I started out on a new job, doing FAA certification work for aircraft systems, as soon as I figured out that it was mostly bullshit work to keep the regulators snowed, they moved me aside (same company, different job).
Running into this right now, sort of (Score:4, Interesting)
I am at the point I'm about to retire. At work, I keep having to remind people of this. I'm the one who has built up the knowledge base, and everyone comes to when they need something. I understand how all the parts work together, while most are focused on the piece they work on. I am constantly reminding upper management that I need to train people. People keep coming and going, learn then leave. And no one reads documentation, so that's not an option. Their all good people, and I'm sure they will handle it when I'm gone. We are constantly working on modernizing, which is great! Just need to make sure that they don't forget important parts.
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> And no one reads documentation, so that's not an option
Turn it into an app that includes social networking. Maybe that'll get them to read the documentation.
Re:Running into this right now, sort of (Score:4, Funny)
I'll record everything in 15-60 second clips and host it on TikTok. That or build it in Minecraft. Make them dig to locate the information!
Why worry about it (Score:4, Informative)
Once you leave it won't be your problem if management have been short sighted with the training and the company tanks. Most people don't stay at companies more than a few years now anyway as its been demonstrated many times in the last decade or so that people are norhing more than "resources" like paperclips to most companies, to be disposed off when profits dip.
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I'd agree with that. As long as you have made it clear to management that they need to step up and understand how much is walking out the door when you leave, you've done your job.
Re:Running into this right now, sort of (Score:5, Insightful)
> I am at the point I'm about to retire. At work, I keep having to remind people of this. I'm the one who has built up the knowledge base, and everyone comes to when they need something. I understand how all the parts work together, while most are focused on the piece they work on. I am constantly reminding upper management that I need to train people. People keep coming and going, learn then leave. And no one reads documentation, so that's not an option. They're all good people, and I'm sure they will handle it when I'm gone. We are constantly working on modernizing, which is great! Just need to make sure that they don't forget important parts.
A bit of unsolicited suggestion...
Start now and incorporate yourself. LLC or as I prefer a S-Corp.
Then when you retire, and they inevitably get lost and try to contact you...be ready to consult back to them 1099 at a few hundred dollars and hour bill rate.
This way, you'll get some good pocket money, they won't go down the drain AND if the bill rate is high enough they won't bother you for piddly shit....
Just a thought.....
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So much this. A lot of people "pushed out" come back as consultants with more pay and shorter hours.
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Fuck it, retire. No longer you problem if the company folds due to mismanagement.