5. And what of the mature workforce?
If you are concerned about performance, don’t be. Scientific evidence shows ‘for most people, raw mental horsepower declines after the age of 30, but knowledge and expertise keep increasing beyond the age of 80’.
If, like the Australian Bureau of Statistics, you consider older workers to be those 45- 64 years of age, you may want a rethink. It is my assertion that 55 and above are our new mid-career candidates. For a start, life expectancy shifted to 83.79 versus 71.21 years in 1970, and almost a quarter of workers don’t intend to retire until the age of 70. Additionally, the share of workers over the age of 55 has doubled from 9 per cent in 1991 to 19 per cent in 2021, a significant, untapped sourcing pool, rich in expertise, talent – and yes, skills!
The skills shortage is a hard fact but not a new phenomenon. It is not just attributed to the pandemic, unemployment rate, ageing population, lack of migrants, etc. It is systemic and far more reaching.
We need to remind ourselves to ‘fall in love’ again with the work we do and everything it entails. Not just the purpose, meaning and flexibility, but the labour of it too. The noble and the humble, the challenging and uninspiring, the balance and reality of the now world.
Originally published by www.kochiesbusinessbuilders.com.au