The country is aging and so is its workforce. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 45% of civilian workers will be 45 or older by 2030, and workers over 75 will account for nearly an eighth of the total. Some employers view this as problematic: older workers are more expensive, they are slower, they are more likely to get ill or need time off to care for their even-older parents. Or so these employers think.

The reality is far more nuanced. Heather Tinsley-Fix, senior advisor for financial resilience at AARP, said that younger workers also need time off–to care for children, for instance. And while workers with longer tenure do cost more than someone just starting out in their career, there are costs associated with replacing them. Tinsley-Fix said there is data showing it can cost upwards of $30,000 to hire and train someone new, on top of the salary you will pay. You also lose a lot of expertise and intellectual capital when you turf an older employee for a cheaper replacement.

AARP studies have found many benefits among organizations that have multigenerational staff: better resilience in tough times, more diversity of views and capabilities, improved stability, and better retention among the entire workforce. Older workers are often more flexible in terms of schedule, and according to BLS data, they are more likely to seek part-time employment voluntarily.

At Vivo, a fitness company that provides real time virtual training for those over 40, an older staff also helps attract more clients, said Eric Levitan, founder and CEO of the Atlanta-based company. Often older people are less comfortable with the trainers at traditional fitness studios and gyms, and older trainers feel the same disconnect with younger clients, he said. His model leverages that and gives another compelling reason for people to spend their fitness dollars with Vivo rather than somewhere else.

Many industries are facing labor shortages and a dearth of appropriate talent. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce lists hospitality and the retail industry as suffering most from this, while HR consulting firm CXC cites health care, non-flight-crew-related aviation and airport jobs, and construction as industries in dire need of staff.

Retaining Older Workers: What Do They Value?

Given the demand for their labor, the question becomes: What are the best ways for employers to retain older workers in their jobs? Tinsley-Fix said that older workers want the same thing as younger ones in terms of feeling valued and respected. “Research shows people want the same core things across generations.” If you are doing a good job providing any of your workers with a feeling of mission and inclusion, and if you are providing adequate compensation, you should be able to inspire loyalty among the older workers in your organization.

“The only potential difference is that what younger people think respect means may be different than what older people think it means,” she said. It’s a good question to survey employees and candidates about.

Using older people to fill employment gaps has worked well for Susan Cornish, a Columbus, Ohio-based franchise owner with the childcare company Jovie. “Some people are looking for something different after downsizing, or they are interested in something part time while they retrain,” she said. While that implies that the childcare gig is only temporary, Cornish has found many stay on. One of her older employees was going to stay only until she completed some additional education. Several years later, she’s still on the job–one of the increasing number of older people Cornish has among her 150 employees. “We tend to skew young, but that may be due to the old name,” she explained. Until early this year, the company name was College Nannies and Sitters.

Increasingly, Cornish is looking for older workers because they have more patience, compassion, empathy–and driving experience. The latter can be a point in their favor for a prospective employer, Cornish said. “A crying baby or a mischievous toddler won’t rattle someone who has already raised their children as much as it might someone who is 17. They bring life experience lessons that you can’t train for.”

Finding and Recruiting Them: It’s About More Than Just Money

The biggest issue she has in attracting older workers is knowing where to find them. Cornish said come January, she has a new hire whose job will be to figure out how older potential workers can be reached and entice them to consider a job at Jovie.

Cornish said that older workers are often more flexible about money than younger people. She pays for experience, and a couple of years ago, she would have called older workers more-expensive-but-worth-it. Now, however, she has 17 and 18 year olds with no experience expecting $17 per hour, or more than double the $9.30 state minimum wage.

It can take longer to train older workers on the apps they use as part of their operations, Cornish explained, so managers “pack their patience” when they train. Having a multigenerational workforce helps because often the younger employees can help get older ones up to speed on new tech, a practice often called reverse mentoring.

The longer learning curve is something that Levitan has experienced, too. All his trainers are over 40, and some are over 60. They may not have used scheduling apps or know all the bells and whistles that are available on Zoom, which Vivo trainers use to deliver their classes. “We use our onboarding time to get them up to speed.”

Both Cornish and Levitan have signed the AARP employer pledge to facilitate older workers and aim for multigenerational workplaces. Both think it makes business sense, but Levitan said there are softer reasons to consider it. “They bring a trifecta of wisdom, knowledge, and experience that provides enhanced customer experience. “

Cornish has her own non-data related rationale: “Our tag line is ‘We hire role models,’ and older people are role models, not just to our clients, but also to our younger workers.”

Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner AARP, who sponsored this story, the first in a three-part series.

Lisa Jaffe is a freelance writer who lives in Seattle with her son and a very needy rescue dog named Ellie Bee. She enjoys reading, long walks on the beach, and trying to get better at ceramics.

Power Practices to Understand Employee Needs Actively and Equitably

Investing in the employee experience is a sustainable business strategy to boost retention, engagement, and productivity. Authentic feedback from employees is essential to address their needs and ambitions. “People don't just want to be heard, they want impact,” said Shawn Overcast, the chief insights officer at Explorance during a thought leadership spotlight at From Day One’s August virtual conference. “And through transparent action planning and follow through, employees learn that they can speak their minds freely without repercussions,” she said.Evolving technologies and AI are tools that can help amplify the employee voice. They provide engaging methods of gathering personal and organizational feedback from workers without bias or breaching data privacy. The shift from workers just taking surveys to having opportunities to discuss their experiences in survey comments, feedback channels, and social websites generates valuable insight into organizational transformation.Overcast spoke about People Insight solutions, showing how Explorance’s AI voice of employee solution, called MLY, helps their clients compile and organize diverse and unstructured employee feedback.With the summarization and alerting of frequent and in-depth feedback and perspectives, MLY is a tool for managers and employers to reassess their HR strategies, identify the role of leadership, pinpoint retention risks, and create action plans.Shawn Overcast of Explorance led the thought leadership spotlight (company photo)Explorance helps organizations measure employee needs and expectations through scalable automation tools and a continuous feedback-gathering process, revving the insight-to-action cycle. By supporting the employee journey, organizations improve recruitment, engagement, and overall performance.To actively understand employee needs and drive action, Overcast suggests defining a clear strategy and purpose for employee listening, initiating a focused and structured action-planning process, and empowering employees. Actively understanding employee needs involves deliberate engagement and effort to take action.With more opportunities to provide qualitative feedback through discussion forums, survey comments, and social websites, employees can become empowered knowing that their feedback drives organizational change.To fairly understand employees, ensure objectivity using clear and predetermined criteria to make decisions, leverage several listening tools and channels, leverage AI solutions to remove bias, and become more aware of cognitive bias in your listening strategy.“Cognitive biases can lead to unintentional decision-making, and biases can be really tricky,” Overcast said. “They often sit beneath the surface. They’re beyond our conscious thought, and this can impact our ability to analyze data fairly and to take fair and equitable action.”For example, a people analyst in the retail hospitality industry used MLY to go through 10,000 comments sorted into different departments by sending automated relevant insights to managers. Included in the comments were employees’ recommendations to solve specific issues. The people analyst forwarded these to managers.“So often we task the analyst with identifying best practices for responding to the feedback, but the people who know best how to improve employee engagement in your organization are your employees since they’re the ones experiencing it,” Overcast said.Engagement and exit surveys are beneficial for benchmarking, tracking trends over time, and identifying areas of opportunity, Overcast says. However, multiple qualitative insight channels highlight distinct perspectives: respondents express themselves more frequently and constructively across multi-channel listening tools and platforms.The incorporation of AI is a quick solution to the often time-consuming process of HR personnel reading through thousands of comments on any online channel. AI quickly organizes and contextualizes unstructured online feedback into sources of specific and relevant employee experience data without bias. The feedback can guide action to close skill gaps, support upward mobility, and develop managers and people leaders.Using technology and an empathetic approach to surveying employee well-being, Explorance utilizes the employee voice to help clients create solutions that authentically address concerns, says Overcast. The opportunity to influence change is the underlying role of the employee voice: “It’s about the belief that if I have something to share, it will be listened to and it will result in change.”Editor's note: From Day One thanks our partner, Explorance, for sponsoring this thought leadership spotlight. Stephanie Reed is a freelance news, marketing, and content writer. Much of her work features small business owners throughout diverse industries. She is passionate about promoting small, ethical, and eco-conscious businesses.

Crafting an Inclusive Financial Wellness Program to Engage and Empower Employees

Financial wellness programs have become essential for attracting and retaining top talent while fostering an inclusive and engaged workforce. More than 80% of employees want professional help with their finances, says Amy Chou, chief product officer at Addition Wealth, a holistic financial-wellness platform.During a From Day One webinar Chou spoke about leveraging financial wellness programs as an integral component of an inclusive benefits strategy, empowering employees to make smart, informed financial decisions. She shared tips for designing a financial wellness program that effectively addresses the diverse needs and expectations of employees by combining digital tools with human expertise.Why Financial Wellness“Finances are really top of mind for all employees given all the changes in today’s economy,” Chou said. “The stats are really jarring.” According to the company’s research, Chou shares that 78% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, with credit card debt at an all-time high of $1.13 trillion. “We have the most educated workforce these days,” Chou said, but with that education comes $1.75 trillion in student debt. 27% of U.S. adults have no emergency savings; 64% of adults say that inflation is what is making it hard for them to save for unexpected expenses. And investing and saving options are becoming increasingly complicated, alienating those who might actually be in a position to start saving.These numbers are causing anxiety, with 90% of Americans reporting stress from their finances, and 34% saying it impacts their mental health. Traditional financial solutions are no longer sufficient and leave a gap in knowledge and service for employees. Financial advisors can be expensive and free tools are often too generic and unable to offer the comprehensive view needed today.Trends Impacting the Financial Benefits ExperienceThe past few years have changed the HR landscape, Chou says. Pay transparency is becoming increasingly important. Market trends have impacted hiring, even though unemployment remains low, headcount reductions have hit certain industries.The economy has changed how employees feel about their finances. Rising healthcare, living, and other costs have impacted employee financial security and demands from their benefits. And in turn, rising costs have impacted the cost of the insurance and benefits themselves, which in turn impact the employer’s bottom line. “This is where we believe financial wellness offerings come in,” Chou said.Evaluating Financial Wellness OfferingsAmy Chou of Addition Wealth led the webinar (company photo)Holistic well-being is increasingly important during turbulent financial times. There are many point solutions and benefits that employees are struggling with how to utilize best, such as inclusion emergency savings accounts, earned wage access, student loan reimbursements, tax benefits, life insurance, and more. “We think that the modern financial wellness program that can benefit an employer and employee alike is really one that stretches across all of these different areas,” Chou said. Wellness programs should be answering key questions like, ‘How do I stretch my income further? And which of these point solutions is best aligned with my personal goals?’The best programs will offer “a solution to help people decide what they should be opting into, how much they should be opting into, or the order by which they need to be doing things,” said Chou. These offerings will benefit employers, also, leading to increased productivity, retention, and more.An Inclusive Employee ExperienceA financial wellness program, Chou says, should be flexible enough to serve employees of all levels, ages, and backgrounds. The best ones on the market should offer the following six components:Holistic offerings that help with all decisions, such as retirement planning and debt management. A high-tech and high-touch model that is user friendly to both employees and employers and integrates easily with your HR systems. Fiduciaries who aren’t pushing specific products in order to make money off of commissions, product sales, kickbacks, referrals and the like may distort their incentives. “Make sure that the financial wellness player is acting in a fiduciary capacity,” Chou said, and only acting in the interests of the employee. One-on-one access to financial experts, such as certified financial planners, certified public accountants, investment advisors, financial fitness coaches and more. “Regardless of age, regardless of demographic, location, etc, if a problem gets too complicated and a person is getting too stressed, oftentimes it can be easier to talk to a person about it and to have that person guide you through and coach you through the situation,” Chou said. “A lot of these decisions are very emotional,” and can’t rely on technology alone. A personal touch may be required. Personalized to your specific company needs, ensuring your employees get individualized and relevant information on your benefits packages, compensation models, and more. “This will drive engagement and better outcomes for employees,” Chou said. Customized to the individual needs of your employees, allowing employees to choose how they want to engage (whether that’s self-service tools, one-on-one meetings, or live large-scale events) and match demographic and educational needs, including paying off student debt and planning for retirement for beginners vs. seasoned investments.The Impact of Financial Wellness Benefits“Once you get an offering that really understands a company, understands a base and understands the employee, you really can make a difference,” Chou said. Many employees appreciate the flexibility of technology-based platforms and the ability to access basic financial education that is unfortunately not really taught in schools, she shares.“You can really make a difference in your employee’s life, but also the families, the dependents, the spouses of these individuals, because oftentimes this employee that gets access to financial education can bring that into their communities and can bring that into their home to really widen the impact of these benefits,” Chou said. “And once people can plan better and manage their finances better, they really get that peace of mind.”Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Addition Wealth, for sponsoring this webinar. Katie Chambers is a freelance writer and award-winning communications executive with a lifelong commitment to supporting artists and advocating for inclusion. Her work has been seen in HuffPost and several printed essay collections, among others, and she has appeared on Cheddar News, iWomanTV, On New Jersey, and CBS New York.

Generational Allies: Four Ways to Adopt More Age-Inclusive Habits in Your Workplace

Amy, a program manager at a tech company in Salt Lake City, learned her most valuable lesson about inter-generational relationships when she was a rookie kindergarten teacher more than two decades ago. Back then, she fully expected to have a positive educational impact on her students; after all, she was 20 years older than they were. “Of course they would learn from me,” she said. “But I didn’t expect to also learn from them.”Learning to meet someone where they are in life, to underscore their strengths and work around their weaknesses, is something she carried with her when she left teaching to work in tech, where she thinks that surprising experience helped her be a more dynamic supervisor and mentor. “I don’t expect that every team member who is 20 years or more younger than me will need my guidance. I know that there will be ebb and flow between us, and I think that makes me a better manager.” Working in a multigenerational organization can leave you surprised by what you need to teach, but also what you can learn from those who are older and younger than you. Embracing opportunities to foster a multigenerational team can help move a good organization to great. In this story, the second in a three-part series leading up to our Oct. 3 webinar on Tools to Create a Multi-Generational Workforce, we'll be looking at how employers can confront this challenge by adopting more age-inclusive practices. Here are four ways you can do that:Expand Your Hiring ProcessIf you are only sourcing potential hires who are recent grads, those who have a degree, or who are younger (and perhaps therefore lower-paid) you are limiting your organization. Even if you think you are casting a broad net, the data suggests otherwise.People in their 40s and beyond typically find it harder than younger people do to find entry- and intermediate-level jobs, according to a survey of 3,800 employed and unemployed people and more than 1,400 hiring managers. It can take more than six months to find a new job for older people, partly because of the perception of hiring managers. One quarter of them view younger candidates as having more relevant work experience than older age groups. The survey, conducted for Generation, a non-profit involved in job training and placement, reported that hiring managers think older people are less adaptable as well. However, when asked to rate the people they hired, 87% said older workers perform as well as younger ones. AARP, the nonprofit group that advocates for people 50 and older, practices an expanded search process when adding to their 2,000 person workforce. The organization ensures its job descriptions don’t overly privilege any single age group, says AARP senior advisor Heather Tinsley-Fix. “We don’t put upper ranges on experience requirements. Rather than five to 10 years, we say five or more. We don’t ask for graduation dates.” The organization has a robust internship program that doesn’t limit interns to college students. When looking for interns or candidates, AARP sources from organizations beyond universities, Tinsley-Fix says. Her organization may engage with libraries, senior centers, or civic organizations that host work fairs or put advertisements in media favored by older users.Another problem with limiting recruiting efforts to post-secondary education and training institutions is that it prevents organizations from considering those without degrees. Prior to the pandemic, companies engaged in degree inflation: requiring degrees, or higher degrees, for jobs that may not really need them. But according to a Harvard Business Review report, as hiring became more and more difficult during the Great Resignation, companies reduced educational requirements and adopted a more skills-based assessment of candidates. Postings for jobs requiring an undergraduate degree fell by 12% overall. At companies like Accenture and IBM, less than a third of the job postings for software quality-assurance engineers required a four-year degree. At the same time, ads grew more descriptive of skills the job required.Sow Accord, Root Out DistrustWhile it’s human nature to seek out those who are like us, it’s not a healthy dynamic for high-performing teams or organizations. One way to help improve understanding between different age groups is with a multigenerational Employee Resource Group (ERG). FINRA, a not-for-profit organization that oversees broker-dealers and their personnel, has more than 4,400 employees and contractors. The organization created a Multigenrational Employee Resource Group Exchange (MERGE) to specifically engage its workforce in the diversity of their points of view in life. According to the leaders of the MERGE team, Ann-Isabel Previl, Julie Petulla and Elizabeth Porter, its purpose is to give voice to each generation. They do this “by showcasing their unique and diverse perspectives and facilitating intergenerational collaboration and communication,” said Previl.There are currently four generations in the FINRA workplace, Petulla says, and in 2018 the organization’s leaders decided that providing a way to share different generational experiences and perspectives could increase understanding and decrease any prejudices. “MERGE seeks intentional opportunities to provide members the forum to engage with generations other than their own to help members increase their professional network and increase communication and collaboration among different generations.” “Each generation has different styles of communicating,” said Porter. “Our generation may impact our preferred communication platform, level of directness or formality, and use of slang. These differences in communication styles can lead to misunderstandings. For instance, over text/instant messaging, a short sentence ending in a period may look perfectly friendly from a Baby Boomer's perspective but could be construed as an angry message by a member of Gen Z. By discussing these differences openly, we can better understand our colleagues and collaborate more effectively.”MERGE has created several programs that have helped to dispel myths about different age groups and foster a better understanding. “The Workplace Through Her Eyes” focuses on how women perceive their working environment. One woman from each of the four generations at work at FINRA is asked to share their stories about work–how it was at the beginning of their career, how work attire has changed, or what’s different about communication styles. A series on financial innovation featured investment differences between generations and looked at changes in technology and attitudes towards investing. In this case too, someone from each generation shared their views and experience. “Programs like these do a great job of bringing in other ERGs to raise awareness and address issues related to creating and maintaining multigenerational collaboration in the workplace,” Porter said.Teach and LearnWhen you think of the word mentor, the image is usually an older person guiding a younger one. But according to Harvard Business Review, companies like GE, Deloitte, Cisco and Procter & Gamble are upending that tradition with “reverse mentorships” in which younger people teach older people new skills. Mutual mentorship, where a linked pair teach each other, has also been shown to “support employees’ development of competencies and skills and increase both individual involvement and collective motivation,” said HBR.Aaron Witt, CEO of BuildWitt, a services, media and software company that works with mining and infrastructure organizations, is a generation younger than company VP Dan Briscoe, but the two are unfazed by the age gap. “I don’t think we ever acknowledged being so different in age, but we have definitely leveraged each other’s perspectives,” Witt said. “Dan had way more experience in marketing and business, so I leaned on him heavily. And Dan knew I could tell stories well and leverage social media to build our brand, so he always supported what I was doing on the ‘younger’ front.”Witt says it’s critical to remember that everyone comes from a different place. It’s not just age, but upbringing, career, and life experiences. “It’s my job as a leader to know how someone thinks and what their strengths are. The better I know them, the more effectively I can position them in the right place for themselves and our business.”As someone relatively new to the business world, Witt has learned to lean on Briscoe’s expertise. While he still may have an occasional inclination that he knows better, “I’ve learned it’s best to keep my mouth shut. They have more to offer than I previously thought.”See the Differences That MatterIf you want to leverage a multigenerational workforce into your organization’s superpower, you need to understand them. There are, indeed, differences between generations. But it’s not productive to embrace the stereotypes, for example that one group is tech savvy, and one is staid and slow to change. The more valid observation is that there are differences in communication styles. Younger people may prefer texting and instant messaging. Older people may respond better to public recognition and rewards. What engages someone who is 45 may be different than what keeps a 60 year old focused. “Generational differences exist, and the research, done right, can be very enlightening,” says Corey Seemiller, PhD, who studies generational differences. “It is insightful, not predictive. If you want to understand Gen Z and you’ve never heard of TikTok, you may want to find out what it is.”She suggests getting to know how the different age groups in your organization think. She pointed to a survey she believes gets to the heart of similarities and differences between age groups. “Learn what it takes to make them thrive,” she said. It’s the same lesson that Amy, the tech-industry manager, learned as a kindergarten teacher.Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, AARP, for sponsoring this story, the second in a series on how employers can foster age inclusion in the workplace. Interested in assessing how you are doing with age inclusion? Try AARP’s new tool on Managing a Multigenerational Workforce. Just send an email to employerpledge@aarp.org, with the subject line betatest. In part three of this series, we’ll explore worker-retention strategies from the perspective of different age groups. Part one of the series is What a Five-Generation Workforce Means for You: The Myths and Realities.Lisa Jaffe is a freelance writer who lives in Seattle with her son and a very needy rescue dog named Ellie Bee. She enjoys reading, long walks on the beach, and trying to get better at ceramics.

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