Employers can't afford to ax mature workers, say researchers:
In a new article in the Australian Journal of Management, researchers warn employers not to make hasty decisions in either dismissing or discounting the input of older workers.
"Employers are well known for targeting mature workers when downsizing their workforce—but this might be a costly mistake," says Dr. Valerie Caines.
She notes that governments can also overlook the value of older workers, as shown by the SA Government recently pulling its funding to DOME (the Don't Overlook Mature Experience training organization), which provided valuable support services to mature job seekers.
"A common mistake is to think of mature workers as all being the same," says Dr. Caines. "There is huge variation among mature workers' motivations, capabilities and needs. Their experience is especially valuable now, because mature workers can offer considerable value to an organization during a crisis and play an important role in helping a business progress to the 'next normal.'"
Dr. Caines says older workers may also hold the solution for filling employment gaps in organizations, due to diverse skill sets they have developed through their working life.
"Mature adults demonstrate considerable resilience," she says. "The aspect of role modeling resilience is an especially important influence on younger workers. It includes mature coping strategies, emotional intelligence and empathy—and these attributes have never been more important in the workforce."
Journal Reference:
Valerie Dawn Caines et al. Older workers: Past, present and future, Australian Journal of Management (2020). DOI: 10.1177/0312896220918912
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 30 2020, @02:52PM (15 children)
We just went over this. Employers want certs, not experience, maturity, or know-how. After all, old people are old, and old things are bad. Those pesky old people still have some obsolete sense of "ethics", or don't approve of privacy-raping, or don't like doing everything over a cell phone, or want to spend money doing things the so-called "right" way, or such. So they have to go.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 30 2020, @03:03PM (3 children)
Heh? Apologies, can you remind me when?
(Score: 4, Touché) by DannyB on Tuesday June 30 2020, @04:18PM (2 children)
You don't remember because you are too old.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Rupert Pupnick on Tuesday June 30 2020, @11:41PM (1 child)
I’m NOT old. I’m just chronologically challenged.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 01 2020, @06:30PM
Oh, in that case, we'll have this discussion again yesterday. Just like we had next week.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by looorg on Tuesday June 30 2020, @03:10PM (6 children)
Isn't it all about the money? OLD costs a lot more then YOUNG. Fuck all that knowledge and stuff if you can get multiple young for the price of an old. That said this doesn't count if you are in the top echelon of the corporation since there is old is valuable somehow.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 30 2020, @03:24PM (3 children)
My worldwide employers M.O. is to put one expensive, experienced person in each location and fill the rest of the positions with anyone with a pulse at minimum wage. The only reason for the experienced person was to fix the fuckups by everyone else. Experienced people need not even apply, they'll be passed over for grunts.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 30 2020, @07:42PM (2 children)
There used to be a time when people were evaluated yearly on their performance and discharged if they weren't growing. That has changed to teams only existing because of available budget, employee initiative is unrewarded, employee ineffectiveness is tolerated. As long as an individual doesn't mess up too badly, or middle management has to cut the budget, everyone is going to remain where they were year on year.
It's communism, just not done by the government. Why would anyone give their best if the company will only consider you a grunt?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 01 2020, @01:24AM (1 child)
Why would anyone give their best if the company will only consider you a grunt?
I left when the local management team was treated to Cancun for the 160% productivity of the grunts.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 01 2020, @03:48AM
I remember the crew I left a few months back. I'm not certain if they were gaslighting me or if it really is possible to be that goddamn dumb and sloppy. Wouldn't be surprised if I learned some day it was a money laundering organization.
The major lesson I learned from that place was that fast food is not the worst kind of job I've ever had.
I should have left that place so many years ago.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 30 2020, @06:53PM (1 child)
Whereas the young ones might find it "so exciting!" for the first few months or even years.
The other thing is many older workers are less prone to falling for BS tech and supposed "trends". Anyone remember Microsoft Silverlight?
(Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday June 30 2020, @08:47PM
Old people know that code compiling to opcodes for a VM that are then handled by a runtime interpreter was innovated in 1969 by the UCSD p-system, not in 1995 by Java.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 30 2020, @03:47PM (2 children)
I was 'let go' a while back, along with a couple of other 'fossils'. We'd built the business up from nothing to selling items globally that we'd designed and manufactured. Everyone 'let go' was over 50, we'd decades of experience in multiple fields, worked well as a team, but now, told to more or less 'fuck off', mostly have set up as self-emloyed businesses in direct competition to our old employer.
The particular 'business unit ' of our old employer that we worked in started failing some time after our 'departure'. It was circling the drain in the months before COVID (website had stopped accepting new orders). it was both painful and sad, sort of, watching the young 'certified' geniuses that replaced us piss away the work of better part of a decade that we'd put in building it all up, but, as they say, 'shit happens' and also 'what goes around, comes around', they're not going to survive COVID, übermanglement is using the virus and lack of orders as the excuse to close it.
(Score: 3, Informative) by ElizabethGreene on Tuesday June 30 2020, @10:23PM (1 child)
If your employer "let go" only people over 50 then you can make a compelling case for age discrimination.
This shouldn't impact your current work, could get you some cash, and would punish your former employer. You might consider it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 01 2020, @07:54PM
A couple of us thought about it, saw the lawyers, but the eventual consensus however was that we wanted absolutely nothing further to do with the company. It would have been nice to screw some money out of them, but we were of the opinion that all that would have meant was that some other 'low hanging fruit' would have lost their jobs to pay for it, we couldn't live with that.
It was becoming an extremely 'toxic' place to work at in the six months leading up to us being 'let go'. Not long after we'd departed, the CEO responsible for the cuts also left, and the new CEO was from an outfit where he was used to a 150K+ salary & benefits...so there were more cuts, more internal backstabbing - one member of staff, we were told, walked out after being victimised and harassed for six months, which he reported, and they brought a disciplinary action against him. Again, he was well north of 50, but in his case he knew where some of the financial bodies were buried, and apparently he's been trying to interest the financial authorities and newspapers about some fairly major irregularities...remember I said that a CEO left?, turns out he'd done some prison time many years ago for fraud.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 30 2020, @07:41PM
The old people know where all the bodies are buried because they buried them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 30 2020, @03:04PM (1 child)
'Mature' workers cost too much. Kingpins prefer cheap doormats.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 30 2020, @03:07PM
Human doormats cost too much. Kingpins prefer cheap robots.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday June 30 2020, @03:09PM (2 children)
I mean, really... It's not like axes are expensive.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday June 30 2020, @03:32PM (1 child)
Down, down
Down, down
The star is screaming
Beneath the lies
Lie, lie
Tschay, tschay, tschay. [youtube.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by DeVilla on Wednesday July 01 2020, @07:02PM
I need to stop looking at videos like this. I like the performance but moments like this [youtu.be] make my brain itch. This performance looks like it was before the time that Floyd was out numbered by extras on stage. Is it a tape or offstage backup guitarist? (An overdub probably.)
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 30 2020, @03:12PM (13 children)
Just don't ever call me "mature". If I've got grey hair and urinate in an absorbent pad taped to my underwear, have the decency to call me "old". I can see your brain gears whirring as you try to sugar coat what you perceive as my embarrassment - honey, relax. When you finish your little monologue I'll be right here still waiting to get started.
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Tuesday June 30 2020, @04:29PM (1 child)
My dad always says "You have to get old, you don't have to grow up."
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 30 2020, @06:58PM
Young guys use YOLO as an excuse to do stupid dangerous stuff.
Old guys use YOLO as an excuse to not do stupid dangerous stuff. That and we probably still haven't recovered from the last stupid stuff we did. Like erm just cough/sneeze while bending? ;)
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DannyB on Tuesday June 30 2020, @04:32PM (10 children)
I hope I don't come to that, but I'm not getting any younger.
The fun thing is, everyone is going to get old. Even the young people. Yes, really. I was young once. The very idea of getting old seemed so far off in the future.
Fun fact: The older you get the faster time seems to pass. Remember when you were a kid and the time between Christmas or Birthday seemed like forever. I was told when starting high school, and I told my own daughter when starting high school that these four years would whiz right by. It did. And my daughter said the same thing. Then you have your own kids, they seem to grow up so fast. Before you know it they start kindergarten. Then 1st grade, my that first year went by quick! Before you know it you're 40, then rather quickly 50.
Clue: men who have a midlife crisis about 40 do so because they suddenly realize that all the dreams they had at age 20 are not going to happen. All the things they wanted to do, plans they made, they won't have time for all of those. They suddenly realize their mortality is a real thing. So they selfishly need a newer faster car, or a newer faster wife, etc. And technology changes, making some of your prior plans irrelevant. Or someone else has now built that one idea of yours.
I digress. Point is: the young people are going to get old. And faster than they think. Their body will betray them and start failing in various ways. Various common ailments. Some of it becomes perceptible by age 40.
All the code you will write. Products you will build. Probably are not going to change the world. So think carefully about how you spend your time. You can never get it back. It's more valuable than money.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday June 30 2020, @05:56PM (6 children)
Life is vastly different for those who go DO what they are dreaming about, when they are 20. My list of "to do" things? I worked on them early in life. I wanted to see the Arctic Circle, so I went to see it. I wanted to see the Suez Canal, so I went there. I wanted to do a lot of things, so I went, and did them.
It's hard to relate with those who hope to visit Paris "some day", and never make it. They work for 30, 40, 50 years of their lives, dreaming about Paris. They reach retirement - and bad health puts the nix to all their plans.
If I have any advice for young people, it would be, "Get off the couch, get out the door, and LIVE LIFE!!"
Want to see the Mojave desert, to see if it's as pretty as all the pictures? Don't wait until you can afford it. Walk outside your door, step onto Moebius Highway, and take your ass to the Mojave. Yeah, it's as pretty as any picture - and far deadlier than any picture. Ditto for the Badlands, and many other places in the US. Then, there are all the places outside the US.
If you want to see it, go see it! Now! You're not getting any younger, after all!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 30 2020, @07:45PM
Good idea, but we can't. Governments have locked us down.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Tuesday June 30 2020, @07:52PM
I'll adapt your life experience and wisdom to the following: Go ahead and stay on the couch and watch TV. Just bring them both to the places you want to go, and do it *there*. "Yeah, I wanted to go to the Mojave, and I did it! I think I saw a few scorpions and a coyote during the commercials."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 30 2020, @10:11PM (3 children)
And that's easy to do if your dreams are within easy financial reach in your 20s. If you ever dreamt bigger than "go to place", or you weren't born to relatively well-off parents, you might have to wait until your 40s to be able to afford pursuing your dreams, if you ever can.
You did well out of the birth lottery, good for you.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 01 2020, @01:22AM (1 child)
If you have children (and aren't irresponsible or rich), it's pretty much mandatory to have to downgrade from "chasing your dreams" to "having a hobby".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 01 2020, @10:10PM
Call the whaaaaaambulance!
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday July 01 2020, @02:20AM
Not so much the birth lottery, as making people want to PAY ME to go see those places. :^)
So, I didn't get rich on it, but I made a living.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday June 30 2020, @06:41PM
The older you get the faster time seems to pass.
Time is logarithmic.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 30 2020, @07:09PM (1 child)
You sound young. Normally older people know that not everyone lives long enough to get old.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday June 30 2020, @07:29PM
I'm young enough to code, study, learn new things eagerly. Yet I know where all the bodies are buried in my organization for the past four decades. Started this job when I got out of school. In a time when a BIG hard drive was 40 MB. And just a couple years earlier, on a minicomputer, a 40 MB hard drive was $35,000.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 30 2020, @03:24PM (18 children)
Individual insurance rates in general:
age 20-29: $x/month
age 30-39: $(2 * x)/mo.
age 40-49: $(4 * x)/mo.
age 50-59: $(8 * x)/mo.
age 60-65:$(16 * x)/mo
age 65-: $infinity aka so expensive we make it Medicare's problem
Imagine what happens to group insurance rates when a business continues to accumulate older workers in its group.
This cost model only makes sense when older workers are forced upward through ever higher and more rarified levels of management, or culled. Keep the lower levels young and cheap.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 30 2020, @03:33PM (7 children)
Is this a clever argument for single payer? To take that factor out of the hiring decision? Because it seems like a good idea.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday June 30 2020, @03:35PM (6 children)
Single payer is the only kind of insurance that makes sense, period. And, for health insurance: mandatory buy in (through taxes).
A small insurance company is a bad insurance company, no way around it - that is the nature of risk spreading.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 30 2020, @07:49PM (5 children)
Single-payer will never work in the USA unless doctors are allowed to ticket/fine people (% of income fines, that is) who refuse to take care of themselves. Fear of bankruptcy is literally the only thing keeping many Americans from drowning their misery in eating all the steak, butter and banana splits they can afford.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by sjames on Tuesday June 30 2020, @09:29PM (1 child)
Nonsense. It works everywhere else in the 1st world, even in the UK where beer drinking is a national sport.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 01 2020, @03:02PM
FCVO "beer". I'm sure you consider it a sport, but your ale is to real beer what curling is to ice hockey.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 01 2020, @02:56AM
Seriously, that is some stupid reasoning.
Many Americans drown themselves in alcohol and unhealthy food because they are terrified for their future. Lack of healthcare is a rather big point for many, and a painful expense if they don't have employer coverage. Even with insurance people end up paying quite a bit.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but you've fallen for some grade D bullshit propaganda.
(Score: 2) by DeVilla on Wednesday July 01 2020, @06:52PM (1 child)
We can also use insurance as a lever to take care of other social issues. Got a beef with someone's lifestyle? Spirituality? Landscaping? Well, they can fix it or lose their safety net. Your naive if you think it won't be abused that way. Idealistically, tax funded single payer insurance is great. It reality it will become another tyrant's tool. Like federal money for the interstates. It will be used to "change minds" when someone in government chooses to unilateraly "alter the deal".
(Score: 2) by sjames on Thursday July 02 2020, @07:52AM
You mean like rigging employer provided insurance to not cover family planning because that might lead to employees having sex without intending to have a baby?
It hasn't been a problem elsewhere, are you asserting that the U.S. is uniquely corrupt?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday June 30 2020, @03:33PM (2 children)
I've noticed several of our older workers being retained "on a part time basis," meaning that they no longer receive benefits.
It's consistent with the HR messaging of "adjusting our compensation package to remain competitive with the current business environment" - code for: anywhere else you go is going to screw you just as bad, so we've got to screw you too to stay competitive. Meanwhile shareholders continue to receive their expected 7+% CAGR, and our bonuses drop to 0 if we fail to deliver at least 6.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 30 2020, @03:47PM
Fortunately many of our older workers were able to buy a house and got pensions for when they retire. These new fucks, they don't stand a chance.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 30 2020, @08:59PM
Ah yes, they tried that one on me after they'd made me redundant...I got the phone call when someone pointed out to manglement who'd been complaining about idle machinery and outstanding orders that they'd just 'let go' the only person that they had working for them who knew how to operate and maintain their ancient CAD/CAM system, and who'd designed all the products they churned out.
I told them, literally, to go to fuck and never bother me again. Burn bridges?, fucking nuke them from orbit with dirty warheads....
11 months or so later, ran into someone who still worked there..was told that the CNC equipment had lain idle all that time, despite attempts to get one of their bright young things to run it.
(Score: 3, Informative) by c0lo on Tuesday June 30 2020, @03:45PM (3 children)
What are those "group insurance rates" that you speak about? We don't have those in Australia, the country TFA is about.
To put this in perspective, an "overseas visitor hospital care" plan for over 70yo can be had for AUD200 a month/person. The govt requires AUD1000000 global annual benefit limits as a minimum [homeaffairs.gov.au] - I insured my visiting parents for a limit of AUD$2M each.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 30 2020, @04:07PM
If you don't have them, it's because you don't know about them. Kind of like the dumbest person in the room - if you don't know who it is, guess what?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday June 30 2020, @06:29PM (1 child)
I also just read that your real estate agents will sell a property for a mere 2% commission (as opposed to 6% in the US), stop waving your drunken rationality in our faces - we already know that a bunch of rowdy ex-cons can run their business better than a bankrupt casino.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 30 2020, @08:06PM
Ahh real estate agents. The original MLM.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday June 30 2020, @08:56PM (1 child)
If the employer was smart, at 65 they'd offer medicare supplement insurance instead. Back down to x/month or less.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 01 2020, @08:13PM
They can't. An employer has to offer all ages in the same CBU or similarly-situated employment the same ECEB insurance. Doing otherwise is age discrimination and illegal. In addition, when you are a large enough (50 or more employees) employer, you cannot discriminate against an employee due to Medicare availability.
(Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Wednesday July 01 2020, @10:22AM
You really REALLY need to fix that. It's not rocket science. You really should do something about it. Stop saying less than third rate is OK.
There won't be just two to choose from in November.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by nitehawk214 on Tuesday June 30 2020, @04:21PM (15 children)
It is well known that firing your experience employees and (maybe) replacing them with low-cost junior workers or outsourcing tends to wreck companies.
The CxO that is making the downsize decision simply doesn't care if the company has long-term viability. All they care about is getting their million dollar bonus at the end of quarter 2 for making it seem like the company is profitable by cutting half their workforce. Who cares if the stock price goes through the floor in quarter 3 and 4? They will get their contract buyout either way.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Tuesday June 30 2020, @04:35PM (7 children)
This exact same thing was true in the early 1980s. Is we learning yet?
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 30 2020, @05:19PM
Yes, the message has spread almost everywhere.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday June 30 2020, @06:01PM
So long as businessmen look up to, and show respect for MBA degree holders, we haven't learned a damned thing.
To be considered a Master of Business Administration, one should have developed his own company, and seen it traded in the stock markets. Anything less is obviously not a master of administration.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 30 2020, @07:05PM (3 children)
Others got rich by privatizing the profits, while socializing the risks and losses.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday June 30 2020, @07:45PM (2 children)
Some, not all, people believe: What does it profit a man to gain the whole world yet lose their soul?
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 3, Touché) by cmdrklarg on Tuesday June 30 2020, @08:09PM
I'll give you one guess which group the vulture capitalists belong in.
The world is full of kings and queens who blind your eyes and steal your dreams.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 01 2020, @03:07PM
Because that man gets to profit off the backs of all the other people who still believe they have a soul.
(Score: 2) by cmdrklarg on Tuesday June 30 2020, @08:07PM
Of course they've learned. They've learned that it works smashingly well for them to rake in the money.
What? Who said that long term company viability was even on the table?
The world is full of kings and queens who blind your eyes and steal your dreams.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday June 30 2020, @06:25PM (6 children)
I worked for a publicly traded (penny stock) company that laid off all employees in Q3, when the Q3 reports hit the wires the stock price doubled presumably due to the lower expense numbers but the text was in there, albeit obscurely buried, about the layoff and cessation of all activities. Amounted to a $10K bonus for me when the stock jumped like that - so I'm not complaining, but... what kind of idiots buy these stocks on this kind of news?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday June 30 2020, @09:32PM
That is an often repeated story and it's quite telling. Wall Street LOVES layoffs. They'd unemploy the whole country if they could.
(Score: 2) by toddestan on Tuesday June 30 2020, @10:33PM (1 child)
The kind of people who think they can dump it on someone else for more money than they paid for it. That someone else may or may not know it's worthless, but they'll buy it because they think they too can dump it on someone else for more money than they paid for it. And so on. Eventually someone will be left holding the bag, but as long as there's buyers who think it won't be them, then the stock will still trade.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday June 30 2020, @11:26PM
Prior to the layoffs we were seeking investment - more than 80% of the potential investors were looking at us as a pump and dump scheme.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday July 01 2020, @01:08AM (1 child)
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday July 01 2020, @03:01AM
Our "investor" suitors believed they had it all figured out: advertise the investment, the stock jumps, they cash out with more than they invested, and the company gets left with some residual cash, while the other shareholders get stuck with the tab. It really is a zero-sum game, you hope that you can spark a sales fire with the residual cash and make the shareholders whole - but unless that happens, they just got screwed and the "investors" rake in another 50% ROI in 3 months or less.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Wednesday July 01 2020, @01:20PM
The same kind of idiots that cause flash-crashes when the rumor of a stock price going up causes people to buy it and then actually go up. Which of course leads to a house of cards that results in a crash.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 01 2020, @04:46AM
We oldbies often recognize fads and bullshit, but bosses and resume-puffers who depend on bullshit don't like that trait.