alt Hacker NewsWhy more companies are recognizing the benefits of keeping older employees
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I work in a place where we have (former) COBOL developers and the actual mainframe. One co-worker worked here for 25 years until they retired last year (does it sounds like trade union propaganda already?). We also have a lot of 20 years old for whom it may be the first job.
Somehow it's consistently no drama and no nonsense place. Compared to the frat house atmosphere of the usual tech startup, it's really different.
"Old age and treachery will always beat youth and exuberance" - as misquoted by Jett Reno in Starfleet Academy.
I work in academia and the breadth of knowledge on how to get things done by the older workers in a bureaucracy is just astonishing. Lose them at your peril!
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46867010
Only keeping, or hiring too? Need a job HN. Though I don't do MS Teams, haha.
Wisdom is a thing, the longer you spend in tech the more you realize that most engineering work is probably a net negative.
This seems to be arguing that they should more than showing that they increasingly are.
Also the bit about companies with more older workers performing better, and the bit about older people often losing jobs due to layoffs, sound like they could also fit together as high firm performance permitting long tenure rather than having to show only that experienced employees cause higher firm performance (although of course the examples demonstrate the latter via other means, so it can't be that it doesn't happen at all).
Nevermind that society dictates everyone must work to survive by default.
Nevermind that work has become significantly more precarious, the cost of living higher, the wages lower.
Ageism is just a dick move in general. It's gotten to the point where job candidates in their 30s and early 40s are dropping work history and education to appear as if they're in their 20s to potential employers - and even considering plastic surgery[1]. It's gotten completely out of control, but I'm quite glad to see more of my peers and younger colleagues taking a firm stance against it in any form.
As long as the work gets done, everything else is irrelevant. As long as the idea is successful, it doesn't matter the age of the person who surfaced it.
Stereotyping just gets your ass into legal trouble, and the easiest solution is to just not do it in the first place.
[1]https://www.businessinsider.com/resume-botox-lying-millennia...
The article is so comprehensive it’s hard to comment on all of it.
I think the idea of making physical workplaces better accessible for older people also benefits the young as well. So many companies just assume “oh hey our factory workers/laborers are strong dudes they can handle XYZ repetitive task no problem.”
But really, you’re just making everyone less productive.
I also think that companies underestimate the quality loss they get when they refuse to cultivate an environment that employees who have the wisdom of older age and perhaps more options to go elsewhere will tolerate.
9/9/6 burnout shops chase away families with kids and older employees who know the value of time and bias themselves toward inexperience, working harder not smarter, and a general lack of diversity in life experience.
Management drastically underappreciates the value of tribal knowledge. Even the best documentation doesn't cover every edge case.
OK, boomer.
The other side of this is old people desperately hanging onto jobs because they can't afford to retire. So slots are not opening up for young people.
I'm now in my 50s. I tried management but prefer working as an IC. I think I'm good but I know most companies would never hire me. One thing I do now is try to look after all the youngest grads and new joiners. Its so cutthroat now it seems no one has time to help anyone else, so I like helping people get up and running and encouraging them to enjoy their work while being productive and getting their skills up. No one else seems to care.