Jonah Engler Says Boomers Can Help Your Business

When hiring or deciding who to keep on your team in a competitive job market, conventional wisdom says you should go young and save money. Skills are always emphasized, but experience is often treated as a negative that comes with the extra baggage of knowing how to do something different than you might do at your office. But why is that bad? Why is it “conventional wisdom” to expect an untested employee to excel and reasonable to expect an experienced employee to be unable to follow your protocol?

When you think about it, keeping a more expensive worker can be more cost effective than bringing in a rookie because they can get more done, and do it better the first time. A more experienced employee can manage more workload because their experience. Also, attendant wisdom allows them to work smarter, answer questions more fully and do more independently.

Older workers can benefit your business by providing engaged and accessible mentors for your younger workers. How would it benefit your bottom line to have a team of employees who did not make the mistakes of their predecessors because they learned the right decisions before making those mistakes? And how would it benefit your productivity to give your less experienced workers a place to go quickly and efficiently when they have a question or suggestion about current projects or protocol.

Instead of treating your boomer employees as soon to be retired space fillers with one foot out the door, you could allow them to take a more active role in the development of systems. Allow them to use their experience, insights, wisdom and perspective that can be leveraged to bolster current production and help you develop your stars of tomorrow. The investment you make in their “today” will pay off huge dividends now and in years to come.

Jonah Engler is a financial expert, stock broker and coffee lover who believes diversity in the workplace is beneficial.