Yes, Working World. You Do Need Us.
By Erica and Karen
We speculate these days about the role of humans in the Age of Algorithms and Technology. Some believe that algorithms will put more and more people out of “work” as we know it, and as a consequence will change what it means to be human. Others argue that there will always be a role for humans, though some of the skills required by the workplace will be different. And many seem to think that there is an age limit to human usefulness.
We are firmly in the camp that humans will always be a critical component of work, and older humans a particularly valuable component. No matter how sophisticated artificial Intelligence gets, human experience and judgment will remain essential to making things work in the first place, and then to figuring out how to move them forward. But that is not to say that work and the workplace don’t have to be disrupted and redefined. They do. For starters, older workers, with our wealth of experience, are excluded—especially in Silicon Valley. That has to change. Our brains are exactly what they need. And not just them. All kinds of businesses benefit from employing older workers.
Let’s start with the numbers. Every 8 seconds, an American turns 65. By 2060, 24% of the US population will be over 65 (compared to 9% in 1960). The majority of Americans who reach 100 won’t be cognitively impaired—perhaps not surprising given that 83% of centenarians will be female! As supported by the statistics in this recent article in the Atlantict, many of us are working until we are years older than we might have been decades ago—and we’re still with it. Put simply, there are a lot of us older folks and most of us have brains that are still working just fine.
By the way, we are all also consumers, and we consume lots of things, including tech products. Does is make sense for any industry to be making products without having us involved in considering what we might want? Or find easy to use?
Then there are our skills. Many people our age don’t want to work the same 70 hour weeks that we once did—but we don’t have to work our old schedules in order to share what we know about the short cuts. We don’t care so much about titles, and maybe not even about pay, so we are no competitive threat. We want to continue to contribute, and to give younger people something that, by definition, they do not have—wisdom, experience, tested judgment.
Finally, there is diversity. Workplaces are more diverse than ever, and we all know diversity translates into value. But most of the time that diversity does not include age. How can a workplace possibly be diverse where there is no-one over 40 with a meaningful job?
So why, when the competition for employees with all kinds of skills is exceptionally fierce, are we siloed out to pasture? Is it because agism is the last acceptable “ism” of the twenty-first century? Seems very odd to be prejudiced against our future selves. And equally odd to be wasting valuable resources when it is plain we can do the job.
[A]ge does correspond with workplace wisdom, and research proves it. Contrary to popular belief, older, more tenured people are more successful entrepreneurs. Those over the age of 40 are three times more likely to create successful companies as a result of their patient, collaborative natures, and their lack of a “need to prove myself” attitude that tends to accompany youth.
Let’s negotiate. You keep the titles and much of the pay. Give us meaningful work to do on different terms. Don’t deposit us on a virtual island of people over 60—and yourselves on an equally restricted island of those under 60—and let’s see what we can give each other. Stop wasting what we have learned. It could help you move faster.