Older Worker ‘Meaning’ in a World Dominated by Marketing and Brands
We are currently living in a world defined by consumerism. How we as individuals or organisations are perceived is now largely defined through the social prism of branding. Many organisations and people carefully curate their brand identity to project positive messages of their importance, success and social or business value. How we allow ourselves to be classified these days has major implications for our status and opportunity in the world. Recruiters consistently recommend we think of ourselves as brands with a compelling brand proposition. But what happens when our personal brand is hijacked by potential employers who add their own beliefs to it and in the process radically change our brand’s perceived value?
I’m not certain there are many of us who in our work CVs believe that branding ourselves by gender, age or ethnicity is a compelling personal differentiator relative to the other skills, capabilities and experiences that might better define who we are and what we represent. Yet, somehow we find these physical characteristics often surreptitiously added by recruiters or talent managers to our brand definition, with age descriptors particularly devaluing perceptions of an individual brand. ‘Younger’ worker branding seems to include the risk of ‘too little experience’ whilst ‘older’ worker branding incorporates the risks of ‘too much of the wrong experience’ or ‘change resistance’ among others. We know that once a brand proposition is embedded in our conscious it becomes very difficult to change. The question is whether branding workers either ‘older’ or ‘younger’ is actually helpful for both the individual or workplace? How does this constructively contribute to improved recruitment, development or succession outcomes? And on what basis do potential recruiters understand the meaning of ‘old’ when applied to our personal employment brand?
Does using a chronological age to define an older worker convey that as a brand their ‘use by date is up’ or their ‘best days’ are behind them? And when is that ‘use by date’ up? At 40 years of age? Or 50, 60 or what about 70 years old? Existing research reveals wide variations in age thresholds in defining the ‘older worker’, with views ranging from anywhere between the ages of 40 and 75 but settling somewhere in the 50- to 55-year-old range. This social trend appears completely at odds with a global phenomenon of a demographically ageing world characterised by people living longer and healthier lives. What an incongruous social view that despite longer lives becoming the norm, our definition of when one becomes ‘old’ in the workforce is becoming increasingly ‘younger’.
Branding a worker ‘old’ suggests any company risking employing such a person is bound to be disappointed and let down with their investment. Age discrimination academic literature positions older worker business involvement as inconsistent with a company’s financial well-being and longer-term sustainability. Over time our western world has embedded a narrative promoting ageing as a limiting condition to productivity and creativity allowing a negative view of the older worker to emerge. The supposed diminution of our major Western societies’ values of independence and productivity within older age helps create an impression of the ‘old and useless’ worker. This is not only misleading but deceptive advertising.
Increasingly evidence is building of the benefits the older worker brings to the workplace. Older workers are confirmed as highly skilled and experienced. Not only are they easy to get on with, but they bring positive attitudes to their work. Research supports they are as productive as younger workers and very open to learning new skills. A further bonus is that once they start in a company, they are less likely to leave it than their younger counterparts. Older workers are also found to display stronger levels of mental and emotional wellbeing than other age groups in the workforce. Why wouldn’t you want to buy a brand that offered so much opportunity, reliability and benefit?
The negative branding associated with the older worker is symptomatic of an insidious western obsession with youthfulness reflecting a dominant ideology in which youth is held to be a valuable and desirable condition whilst older age has no redeeming social value. To be labelled as ‘older’ rather than ‘younger’ somehow signals in a work sense a faulty product. Studies have found younger people, particularly men to be more ageist than older people, hold greater age stereotypes and be more likely biased in their evaluations and expectations of those who they consider social outsiders. This view appears particularly prevalent amongst young managers who discern a major difference between themselves and the older worker
In a world awash with brands and the confusion this creates for consumers, maybe it is time to simplify employment issues by removing age descriptor associations with a worker. Age branding of workers of all ages has allowed misleading advertising messages to flourish, negatively distorting the true value of both younger and older workers. If a worker irrespective of their age has the skills, capabilities and motivation to do the job that’s all that is important or should matter.
References
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