By Overcoming Ageism, in Aggregate Age 45+ Expertise Can Address Canada’s Weak Entrepreneurial Culture and Low Rate of Business Scale-up
Overcoming Ageism: A Strategic Imperative
Enlightened leaders are leveraging our age 45+ contributions, because they have put a proper lens on the experienced worker value proposition, which considers:
a) The 45+ Don't Age Like Their Parents Did: No Correlation Between Age and Productivity
People age differently now than your parents did. Many people's longer lives are experienced as highly productive, extended middle age, rather than additional years in ill health tagged onto the end of life.
b) Ageism: Outdated Thinking that’s Been Debunked
Ageism remains prevalent despite the fact that, as Mercer points out, the 3 drivers of it have been debunked. Older workers are:
not lower in productivity;
not more expensive; and
not change resistant nor technology challenged.
c) The Competitive Advantage Opportunity: Age 45+ Businesspeople
The organizations noted in the graphic below (see links to these 3rd party sources) recognize the strategic imperative of leveraging age 45+ businesspeople to help drive business innovation, growth and competitive advantage.
Recognizing Age-Friendly Companies
Ageism lingers as a social and economic issue. Strides are being made however. We are pleased to support the progress, including by featuring jobs by age-friendly companies. The following continuum provides some guidance on how we see the evolution. The first level, "Age Aware" is inherently applicable to all businesses who post jobs on Elderberry.work. Companies which have earned 3rd party recognition/certifications, as in levels 2 and 3, are indicated in their respective job listings. Level 4 is where we look forward to getting to!
We use “age 45” in alignment with the OECD’s findings that is often when ageism begins to affect workers, although in some sectors it is younger or older.
In Aggregate - Bigger picture "workaround" to Address Entrepreneurial Culture
In contrast to the USA, Canada has a weak culture of entrepreneurship. Which means an absence of a large peer group of entrepreneurs to mentor newer entrepreneurs.
But we have an excellent workaround:
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Leverage Age 45+ functional expertise to address the specific, recurring top 10 reasons that small and medium businesses fail, such as business strategy, finance, marketing and HR.
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Age 45+ may not have been entrepreneurs themselves, but they can help entrepreneurs overcome some of their specific challenges to then become successful.
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Which will help drive rates of business formation and scaling-up.
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In aggregate, this kickstarts a culture of entrepreneurship by fostering new cohorts of successful entrepreneurs.
