Challenges and Benefits: Employing Older Workers in Organizations

This report analyzes the employment of older workers in contemporary organizations, focusing on the challenges and benefits associated with an aging workforce. It presents two case studies: Queen Alexander College in the education sector and Lilian Faithful Homes in the care sector. The report explores the recruitment strategies, such as communication and placement agencies, used to attract older applicants and examines the advantages they bring, including experience, knowledge, and strong work ethics. It also addresses the challenges, such as inflexibility, health issues, and resistance to new technologies. The report concludes with recommendations for inclusive job advertisements and internal recruitment processes to effectively integrate older workers into the workforce. This report provides valuable insights into workforce management, HR practices, and the benefits of an age-diverse workforce. This report is contributed by a student to be published on Desklib, a platform which provides all the necessary AI based study tools for students.

EMPLOYING OLDER WORKERS
IN CONTEMPORARY
ORGANIZATIONS

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION-..........................................................................................................................3
Case study 1- Education sector .......................................................................................................3
Case study 2- Care for training........................................................................................................5
Recommendation- ...........................................................................................................................7
CONCLUSION-..............................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION-
Employing aged worker in contemporary companies bring many issues, that influence on
work performance of younger applicants and decrease productivity (Earl and Taylor, 2015).
Along with this, by employing experienced workers in firm, business will gain many benefits
that increase productivity and profit margin. The present report is based on two case studies
belong to different sector. It explains, reason behind adopting strategies to recruit older worker
and justifies challenges and benefits associated with having an aged workforce.
Case study 1- Education sector
Queen Alexander college is one of the chosen organization in Education sector, they
educate students above age of 16 with autism, visual impairment and other disabilities. It
employed more than 200 workers in workplace. College recruit older applicants by adopting
different type of strategies, such as they communicate to potential workers that have the
knowledge, capability to meet learners particular needs and objective of business. With the help
of communication strategy, Queen Alexander college will hire the most appropriate skilled
labour how are able to provide better services (Smedley, 2017). This outcomes in employees
aged over 50 being among those hired. Company adopt communication strategy to recruit older
people in workplace because word of mouth is one of the best way that business were used and
recruit older candidates. It helps to satisfied worker and make them able to felt valued by its
firms, people passed on this information to its personal connection which also work effectively
for attracting more applicants towards business. Communication resulted in perfect matches
between new workers and culture of college. Recruitment strategies provide many benefits to
company as it helps to recruit and select excellent workers in workplace how are able to
contribute in competitive business environment. With the help of hiring older workers through
external recruitment procedure, organization gain benefits of having experienced workforce.
Challenges and benefits of having older workforce-
According to the Ng and Law, (2014) motivation, development and employee retention is
considered as Human resource management practice in organization in which HR manager play
vital role. HRM apply different kinds of recruitment and retention strategies in order to recruit
and retain talented applicants. Queen Alexander college used communication recruitment
strategy to hire older people because they are able to perform effectively and efficiently. To have
older employees in workplace company obtain many benefits as they are capable to provide

greater knowledge of its students with evidence based practices. Older employees hold pond of
knowledge, they have specialist abilities and talent that is beneficial to its learners. By having the
older worker in workplace, college gain the positive results as they can educate disable and other
students perfectly. Older applicants have strong communication skills more than younger staff
which help them to communicate with students and able to understand issues arise in learning.
They do not interact with students through email, messaging and social media, older workers
have advanced communication ability that they used to make face to face interaction with other.
During class session many students facing issues in learning and understanding new things that
affects on its career growth, but with the help of older staff they get benefits to acquire ways of
learning.
Phillips and Gully, (2015) stated that older applicants provide many advantages as they
hold power to work for longer time and contribute in development of students career the most.
These types of individual keep loyal towards their work, they are typically less likely to leave
and likely to be drawn to stay when people give security and flexibility that is required. Aged
workers with this experience of in work areas make business stronger as they give superior and
expert understanding of how duty will de done more efficiently which saves time and money. By
having aged workforce at work place, company will run their operation in different sector
perfectly, they effectively committed high quality of work. The most effective benefits that firm
gain as they have older workforce is commitment. Aged staff understand the requirement for
regular attendance, punctuality, conformance with task rules and business guidelines. For
example, in workplace senior complain about their younger staff to do not work effectively, they
consider older workforce as strong team who are able to work on time and have good work
ethics.
As discussed by Luski and Malul, (2014) benefits associated with challenges that impact
on overall performance and productivity of business. By having the older workers in business
Queen Alexander college face many challenges in which they deal with conflict situation. Older
employees is less flexible, take more sick leaves and too slow in work, they cannot be able to
continually provide learning course to students in class for long which is not appropriate for
learners. Due to less flexibility in themselves, aged workers cannot be able to work in different
environment around them, they work less effectively and do not want to change working style

because they are not comfortable. Because of age, older staff take a lot of sick leaves that delay
work and less satisfy management through their work.
.Heywood and Jirjahn, (2016) contradicted that older employees require accommodation
facilities as well as security that put pressure on college to make changes in their employment
structure, it is one of the biggest challenge else other while having aged people. Suffering from
illness and other issues older worker required some additional facilities while they are working
with company, that results increase expenses of business. Demand of multiple resources and
comfort zone create barriers in growth and success of firm that bring negative results which is
not appropriate. Aged workers consumers a lot of time to provide good guidance to students in
college, they think too much. Along with this, in college number of disable students were
available how need extra care, in which older applicants does not respond quickly.
Case study 2- Care for training
Lilian faithful homes working in care sector since for so long, they operate three
residential care homes effectively, nursing and dementia home is one of it. Company is
extremely committed to managing age neutral retention and recruitment policies, hire applicants
based on their capabilities to perform job regardless of age. They should recruit older employees
by adopting recruitment strategy that is hiring through placement agencies. These companies
centring on seniors, they help to get aged workers with crucial skills according to the
requirement of company. Furthermore, firm must adopt this strategy for recruiting older
applicants because it helps to get the most knowledgeable people who are able to provide better
care to patients in nursing home. Placement agencies work for many organizations, they play role
as provider of expert applicants and older ones how will be able to compete with competitors and
deliver the best services to consumers effectively.
Challenges and benefits of having older workforce-
As per view of Shawn, Kim and Jitendra, (2014) nursing home offer medication and 24
hours emergency care services to local people with skilled and experience applicants in their
team. By having aged workforce in company they can be capable to operate their large chain of
services effectively and cater it into wider populated area. As individual age, their view about
others and themselves is change, they feel more confident in its expertise and bring stability to
workplace. Aged employees take appropriate decision in context of patients health, because they
have knowledge of many year in same filed. Knowledge and maturity that come from years of

work and life enables older workforce to make innovative decisions, critical thinking, focusing
factors that younger candidates simply do not had. Older employees are honest and loyal,
honesty is the common factors among aged workforce, whose values as team include devotion to
truth and personal integrity. They are totally workaholic, aged staff produce great quality work,
which results in significant cost and time saving for business. They set standards of work,
information about highly committed aged workers motivating other staff members costly
mistakes regarding any things from misspelling of learners name to accounting mistakes.
Boockmann and Brändle, (2015) elucidated that as compare to younger worker, older
workforce is more responsible, they work better than other applicants in company and complete
all its accountabilities related to job in nursing home. Older workforce is highly committed to
fulfil their responsibilities and duties, it is one of the benefits gain by firm while having aged
workforce. They exhibited greater level of professionalism and activity ethics than younger staff,
aged people in business are willing to share their ideas based on experience with others. They
feel less hesitant to communicate when providing health care services or encountering issues.
Older workers is less rattled and counted on in problems. Older workforce reduce costs of
labour, it is one of the huge benefit receive by company when they hire or retain them. They are
able to understood that working for firm can be much more essential than just collecting good
pay check. Younger people do not satisfied with their jobs, they always place new demands
which is mostly not possible to provide all the time. Older worker typically satisfied with job and
environment around workplace, they tend to stay longer more than other people in company.
According to Hennekam, (2015) organization deal with challenges associated with
having the older team at workplace. They make decision less quickly, not been able to make
extra efforts due to fewer injuries that impact on its performance and growth of business as
results decreases in profit margin. Aged workforce suffer from many health issues that effect its
work, physical problems do not allow staff to perform under high work pressure that affects on
delivering quality services to consumers.
Cummins, (2014) argued that there are different challenges that are faced by company for
having elder employees, some on challenges are issues between younger and new employees.
Older workforce will not be able to manage and get comfortable with digital technology. When
Nursing and dementia care centre implement new technologies related to offering health care
services and to secure the data of people, aged workforce will not be able to perform with which

affects on growth and progress of business. They do not feel more comfortable with advanced
and new devices, because older applicant have less technical skills which enable them to perform
effectively. In this situation the requirement of training and development session will increase
that affects on financial performance of company.
Hennekam, (2015) stated that older workforce create barriers for making changes in
organizational structure they are highly resisted for change. Aged employees of company do not
support and contribute in organizational change which include improving skills and learning new
things. Any changes on job or workplace cause applicants to fear for their job loss in firm
because they think that older workers do not match with new working environment. They are
less interested in performing with new or younger staff members and more interested while
working alone.
Recommendation-
Queen Alexander college recommended adopting inclusive job advertisement as the best
recruitment strategy for hiring new applicants. They also retain the older one with business for
longer with the help of motivating employees to take participation in decision-making procedure
that enhance the work abilities and make all of them able to develop their confidence level more
than before.
Lilian Faithful homes suggested adopting internal recruitment process which is quite
beneficial for offering the best evidence based nursing practices to its patients. By recruiting
applicants from existing ones organization build strong connection between management and
workers at every level.
CONCLUSION-
From above, it has been concluded that both the companies were adopting different types
of recruitment strategies for hiring older applicants in firm, they want to build strong team with
some experience people at workplace. Aged applicants have better skills rather than younger
colleagues, they keep some personality such as commitment, adaptability, accountability and
perspective. Furthermore, by having these candidates in workplace organizations deal with many
challenges that effect operational efficiencies more and more. Some jobs are physically
demanding, majority of work in modern company will be performed by older workers that might
be results as failure because they are not been able to perform quickly and ready to change the
ways older workforce work.

REFERENCES
Book and Journals
Boockmann, B. and Brändle, T., 2015. Coaching, Counseling, Case‐Working: Do They Help the
Older Unemployed Out of Benefit Receipt and Back Into the Labor Market?. German
Economic Review.
Cummins, P.A., 2014. Effective strategies for educating older workers at community
colleges. Educational Gerontology. 40(5). pp.338-352.
Earl, C. and Taylor, P., 2015. Is workplace flexibility good policy? Evaluating the efficacy of age
management strategies for older women workers. Work, Aging and Retirement. 1(2).
pp.214-226.
Hennekam, S., 2015. Challenges of older self-employed workers in creative industries: The case
of the Netherlands. Management Decision. 53(4). pp.876-891.
Hennekam, S., 2015. Employability of older workers in the Netherlands: antecedents and
consequences. International Journal of Manpower. 36(6). pp.931-946.
Heywood, J.S. and Jirjahn, U., 2016. The hiring and employment of older workers in Germany:
A comparative perspective. Journal for Labour Market Research. 49(4). pp.349-366.
Luski, I. and Malul, M., 2014. The effects of a back-loaded compensation policy on the
recruiting of older workers. Applied economics letters. 21(5).pp.312-316.
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55. Canadian Journal on Aging/La revue canadienne du vieillissement. 33(1). pp.1-14.
Phillips, J.M. and Gully, S.M., 2015. Multilevel and strategic recruiting: Where have we been,
where can we go from here?. Journal of Management. 41(5). pp.1416-1445.
Shawn, M., Kim, M. and Jitendra, M., 2014. Elderly workers in the workforce. Advances in
Management. 7(3). p.1.
Smedley, K., 2017. Age Matters: Employing, Motivating and Managing Older Employees.
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Visser, M and et.al., 2016. Inequality among older workers in the Netherlands: A life course and
social stratification perspective on early retirement. European Sociological Review.
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Online
12 Benefits of Hiring Older Workers. 2016. [Online]. Available
through:<https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/167500>
Challenges of an Aging Workforce. 2017. [Online]. Available
through:<https://nupge.ca/content/challenges-aging-workforce>