5 Ways Age 45+ Create Business Value for You
We celebrate the extra years of high productivity experienced Canadian Businesspeople enjoy as a result of the "longevity dividend".
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About the 5 ways that Age 45+ Businesspeople continue to add value:
1. Subject Matter Expertise, which can Address the Knowledge Worker “Shortage”
Given Canada’s skilled/knowledge worker shortage, age 45+ businesspeople provide a ready and proven effective source to fill those gaps. However, as Statscan has reported, our skilled and knowledge worker “shortage” is actually more of a mismatch, meaning businesses have a hard time finding the relevant expertise they need, but that it exists “out there”. We need to avoid the brain drain as experienced businesspeople age.
2. Knowledge, Wisdom, and Judgement Needed Even With AI
Age 45+ businesspeople have extended learning curves, informing nuanced judgement. The “DIKW Pyramid” provides a good lens to consider their value add to business. Each level adds incrementally more value. The foundation levels, data and information, generally deal with historical elements. Those levels also frame what artificial intelligence excels at. The higher value add for business is in the upper levels, knowledge and wisdom, which mainly consider future orientations, identifying how experienced business people are necessary.
3. Soft Skills, including Communication, Collaboration, Accountability
"The labor market needs the ‘Soft’ Skills Older Workers Have”, as the American Enterprise Institute reported on findings from the Harvard Kennedy School for Social Policy. Soft skills include collaboration/ teamwork, active listening, responsibility/accountability, and patience.
4. Multigenerational Teams’ Superior Productivity
The OECD summarized the 6 business benefits from multigenerational teams, including making teams more productive, building a stronger talent pipeline, providing a greater diversity of skills and perspectives, and better retention of knowledge workers. The OECD estimates that multigenerational teams can increase per capita GDP by 19% in the coming decades.
5. Cost-efficiency
Given their career arc and their respective present motivations, many age 45+ businesspeople provide a cost-effective source of talent and expertise, especially if they can work on their own terms, when, where, and how much they want. Their cost-efficiency can derive from low overheads, not having to share revenues with consultant principles in a larger organization, and the opportunity to tap into their insights in smaller increments if only that is needed.