Lessons for the workforce from the oldest person in the room

In a low-growth, low-productivity, low-birth rate era, with the pensions time bomb ticking away, keeping people working longer is crucial. But older workers are often overlooked for recruitment or promotion due to prejudice and ageism. Karina Robinson writes about her own experience and says that the problem risks getting worse, as more than half of today’s 5-year-olds in developed economies will live to at least 100.

One day you glance up from your iPhone and you are the oldest person in the room. Dyed hair, a deliberate exercise regime and good genes are not enough to spare you. Gravity may now be your constant companion but there is a delight to being older than the CEO, the head of sales, the head of growth and all the other titles spread like confetti. Everyone assumes a wisdom born of experience.

At a recent two-day retreat with Multiverse Computing, a company whose board I advise, colleagues in their early 30s, and even middle-aged ones, sidled up to ask for career advice or how to deal with internal political concerns. The reading glasses I now must wear may be a pain, but they are also a useful accessory to fidget with while considering the dilemmas of employees at a quantum software firm.

The liberation from ego is not fully accomplished – presumably that Buddhist goal only happens when we are dead – but what the French call ‘je m’en foutisme’, which can be loosely translated as ‘I couldn’t give a damn’, is certainly prevalent. At a London School of Economics alumni gathering, having been given the post-lunch slot for a keynote, I figured there was only one way to wake up the audience: perform a haka like the New Zealand All Blacks. All 5 feet 2 inches of me (1.6 metres) did so; only one Argentine alumnus was able to identify my wild manoeuvrings on stage; no one slept through my speech.

The absurdity of the human condition, of our petty ambitions in a vast universe, come home to roost, as mortality feels more and more like a reality, rather than a distant dream. Making a fool of yourself becomes increasingly irrelevant in the grand scheme of things – good training for a non-executive director in asking the question that no one else dares bring up, or one that may, actually, turn out to be foolish. But one stupid question does not negate a long career.

Women over 50 are the fastest growing segment of the UK workforce, while globally in 2021 this group equalled 26% of all women, up from 22% a decade earlier, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO). They are often overlooked for recruitment or promotion due to prejudice and ageism. Yet the problem also extends to ageing men, and it will only become worse. In the wealthiest nations, experts predict that more than half of today’s 5-year-olds will live to at least 100.

In a low growth, low productivity, low birth rate era, with the pensions time bomb ticking away, keeping people working longer is crucial. Britt Harris, CEO of the US’s largest endowment fund, recently told the FT that ageing executives should ‘move out of the way’ for younger generations. But the leader of the University of Texas and Texas A&M endowment system is missing a trick.

What we need is more people over 60 staying in work, not least because age diversity directly benefits performance via enriched knowledge, skills and social networks. At the LSE’s The Inclusion Initiative (TII), we’ve been considering how the workplace needs to change to attract and accommodate the older worker.

Rather than thinking only about “age-specific steps”, employers need to focus on benefits that accrue to all, but may be especially relevant to older workers, such as more flexibility and more training at work. The policies aimed at those with disabilities, like wellness programmes and meeting protocols (for example, making slides available before meetings) have benefited all employees, notes TII Researcher Daniel Jolles. Age-inclusive HR policies create more inclusive policies for all workers.

The ‘Great Retirement’ of 50+-year-olds saw the UK and other developed countries lose their older workforce post pandemic. In the UK, this movement has not been reversed and is a key factor in the worker shortage holding back the economy. According to think tank Phoenix Insights, 16 per cent of 50 to 64-year-olds that have left work since 2019 blame long-term sickness or disability for being economically inactive. Here, better provision of health support for long-term conditions is crucial, albeit unrealistic given the state of the NHS in the UK and of the straining health systems of other countries.

Meanwhile, 57 per cent of those in their late 50s say they are not looking for work because they are retired or looking after family. This rises to 68 per cent among those in their early 60s. My generation is burdened with taking care of ageing parents in their 80s and 90s, as older life is extended but with its consequent mental and physical vulnerabilities, while also increasingly taking care of grandchildren due to the astronomical cost of childcare and the two-working-parent family. “Employers urgently need to get serious about offering flexible working that fits alongside other pressures and priorities in people’s lives,” notes Catherine Foot, Director of Phoenix Insights.

One way for employers to tempt older workers back is through signing up to the Centre for Ageing Better’s Age-Friendly Employer Pledge. Signing the Age Pledge signals that the unique needs of an older workforce will be catered to – even if some of them are not dissimilar to those of other groups. When a firm celebrates Pride Month in June it is sending a signal to LGBT+ employees and potential employees that their unique needs will be catered to. It is not an onerous pledge. Measures include identifying a senior sponsor for age-inclusion, ensuring age is specifically named within Equality, Diversity and Inclusion policies, encouraging career development at all ages, and hiring age-positively.

An article in the Harvard Business Review focused on how multi-generational teams “bring together people with complementary abilities, skills, information and networks.” Given that we currently have a mind-boggling five generations in the workforce, this is not without age-related misconceptions and conflict, which need to be handled. But the interaction can be a game-changer. The article gives the example of the development of the first low-cost open-source metal 3D printer by the Open Sustainability Technology Lab at Michigan Technological University. Former director Joshua Pearce credits the team’s success to members’ willingness to learn from those of other generations, including “the technical skills of Gen X faculty, the software wizardry of Millennial graduate students, and the experienced resourcefulness of Boomer researchers.”

Seventy-six-year-old Elton John hobbled onto the stage at the Glastonbury music festival in June. As the aerial cameras panned over the crowd – so large it caused a Twitter storm – every young person, as well as the middle aged, sang along to 1970 hits like ‘Candle in the Wind.’ Most appropriate though, was ‘I’m still standing’, which he played from a sitting position.

Why the Benefits of Age Diversity Need to be Shouted from the Rooftops

Speech delivered on Champion Age Diversity Day

Age has been in the news.

In the UK, we just celebrated the Platinum Jubilee of our queen, now 96-years old, and still delivering value in the workplace. In her case, that happens to be the balcony on Buckingham Palace.

In the US we have the oldest man to be sworn in as President at age 78. At age 29, Joe Biden was one of the youngest people ever elected to the United States Senate. He may be domestically unpopular - hugely unpopular – but I am not alone in being grateful that an experienced statesman is in charge during the biggest crisis to face the West since the Cold War.

And on a June weekend, we saw a critically injured 36-year-old beat a 23-year-old at Roland Garros to walk away with his 14th French Open win, and thus be called the GREATEST OF ALL TIME, the best tennis player of his generation: Rafael Nadal, with two grand slams more than his closest opponents.

Yet we live in a world that worships youth. That dismisses the middle aged and the old. A world where if you are over 50, its going to be a nightmare trying to find a new job. And chances are, if you are employed, with stagflation, recession, whatever is coming, your employer is more likely to dismiss you if you are over 50, than if you are younger.

AGE DISCRIMINATION EXISTS AND ITS THRIVING

If I say to you, youth and innovation, youth and entrepreneurship, you won’t bat an eyelid.

If I say to you, an older worker and innovation, older worker and entrepreneurship…well, it doesn’t exactly slip off the tongue, does it?

In fact, I have my own story of age discrimination. In a bid to cut back on the household bills, I thought I would go grey, give up those boring visits to the hairdresser – boring and expensive – every six weeks. I bought a grey wig, to see what I would look like. Let me show you, as I showed my family.

(At this point in the speech, Karina put on a grey wig)

I admit it is a cheap, nasty wig. But what was even more horrific was my 21-year old son’s reaction: “Mama, you are supposed to be at the forefront of social change in the City, of Diversity and Inclusion. If you let yourself go grey, you won’t have any credibility.”

Let me repeat that:’ you won’t have any credibility. ‘

The conclusion is that if you are older, you don’t look like an agent of change, you don’t look like an entrepreneur, you don’t look like an innovator.

WHAT IS THE REALITY?

Let me give you 3 doses of reality.

First. The average age of a successful start-up founder is 45, according to a 2020 research study by Economica. Note the word ‘successful’.

Let me quote: ‘Among those who have started a firm, older entrepreneurs have a substantially higher success rate. Our evidence points to entrepreneurial performance rising sharply with age before cresting in the late fifties. If you were faced with two entrepreneurs and knew nothing about them besides their age, you would do better, on average, betting on the older one.’

Second dose of reality. The future of work. There is a lot of talk about automation taking away jobs from human beings. And about the older generation not being digital natives. We are digital immigrants. All true.

However, according to a study by The Inclusion Initiative at the London School of Economics, brains and heart win in the future of work.

Jobs that require abstract thinking, people engagement and soft skills are less likely to be automated, according to research. The authors also find that combining ‘heart’ with ‘brains’ will future-proof your job further. ‘Heart’ relates to jobs that involve soft skills and are high people engagement.

Now – and what I am going to say ain’t no research study – if I look at my peer group, we don’t need to prove ourselves anymore. We’re comfortable with our faults, with our qualities. We’ve either made it or we haven’t. We don’t take things as personally. We enjoy laughing at our own absurdities.

In a multigenerational workspace, that lack of ego, that lack of the need for struggle, can be very helpful.

Third dose of reality.

We have a vast, skills shortage in the Western world. Labour markets are in flux from the pandemic fallout and technological upheaval. Up to a billion people will need reskilling and life-long training by 2030, according to the OECD. We need more carers; we need more marketing executives; we need more quantum scientists.

And in parallel, on the plus side, we have a healthier population of people over 50, over 60, over 70, some of whom want to work longer, some of whom must, due to financial necessity, and many of whom will reinvent themselves.

As a microcosm of my third ‘dose of reality’, let me give you an example I have become very familiar with. The world of quantum computing. I won’t bore you with the details of how a finance and politics journalist has reinvented herself as a quantum guru – quantum involves geniuses with double PhDs, molecular simulation and Star Trek scenarios. Way out of my comfort zone.

In this ecosphere, the CEO of Google’s quantum spin out SandboxAQ, recently said, “The number one concern we have going forward is the skills gap. When people ask me, “what keeps me up at night?” – that’s what keeps me up at night – the lack of a talent pipeline in quantum and also lack of diversity in that pipeline.”

SEIZE THE OPPORTUNITY

What’s Jack Hidary’s solution? Work with universities to increase the pipeline. But also work with what he calls the “existing adult working population”. While at Google, they trained numerous staff in various quantum and other advanced math courses; they trained customers; they upskilled engineers and scientists that were already- ALREADY – in the workforce.

THAT’s the biggest opportunity. THAT’s the key to the skills shortage. Upskill, training, reinvention in any shape.

In Top Gun Maverick, the much-publicised blockbuster, ageing star Tom Cruise is dismissed by a younger protagonist with the words, “The future is coming, and you’re not in it”. Who can doubt that he, at 58 years old, saves the day?!

Not only are we, the older generation, the future. WE are the key. WE are the opportunity. WE are the solution.

This is the keynote speech delivered by Karina Robinson, Co-Director of The Inclusion Initiative, on Champion Age Diversity Day, as part of a panel on Valuing Age Diversity in the Workplace.

It was sponsored by The Age Diversity Forum and Hansuke Consultants.

Refugees can be a welcome boost for companies seeking talent

Overcoming tribal challenges

The LSE’s new Inclusion Institute

The most successful species on this planet revels in the comfort of conformity. Just think of the boost and subsequent bonhomie that comes from a ‘successful’ meeting where everyone agrees. Yet with instability as the defining condition of our times, executives must evolve to become comfortable with discomfort.

Who, in the City, would hire someone who had failed a Maths O level? Twice. Yet that is the case of Sir Robert Stheeman, one of the most successful and trusted CEOs of the Debt Management Office, which is responsible for issuing UK government debt. It didn’t seem to affect the £2 trillion – give or take a few billion – that he has issued over 17 years in the job.

He is not alone in believing that a contributory factor in the 2008 financial crisis was the increased conformity in the hiring of talent. ECB President Christine Lagarde famously quipped that if Lehman Brothers had been Lehman Sisters the crisis would have looked quite different. Studies from business consultants like McKinsey and respected academic institutions like Harvard Business School conclude that better business decisions result from more diverse and inclusive companies.

And yet how laborious and demanding it is to create this change. The overarching reason is biology. Humans are wired to align individual with group interest, to achieve hyper-sociality, in the words of Mark Pagel, head of the Evolution Laboratory at the University of Reading. Arguably as powerful as the Darwinian natural selection gene is culture, “that software collection of ideas, routines, rituals and behaviours written into our brains – it is the most successful way there has ever been of making more people.”

We are programmed to accept and celebrate the culture of our birth, our tribe, even though it is an arbitrary accident – not to mention the resilience of culturally defined emotions which range from healthy nationalism to xenophobia and racism, notes Pagel.

It is no coincidence that Ursula von der Leyen mentioned Winston Churchill, Soho bars and her discovery of the British sense of humour in the first speech she gave on British ground this year. Titled “Old friends, new beginnings: building another future for the EU-UK partnership,” the EU Commission President reminisced about her time as a student at the London School of Economics, suffusing the room in the warm glow of cultural unity, before delivering the harsh message that “the more divergence there is, the more distant the partnership has to be.”

So how to achieve the cognitive diversity that is necessary to deliver better company returns in a transformed digital marketplace? It is most likely to occur when you mix gender, generation, ethnicity and sexual orientation on boards and teams, and ensure they feel accepted, or included, and thus able to speak up. An uncomfortable meeting is more likely to deliver innovation.

The Financial Services Skills Taskforce report which was published at the end of January was damning of the City’s talent recruitment and retention. Mark Hoban, a former City Minister who chairs the FSST, put it bluntly: “There is no doubt that the financial services sector is facing an existential skills crisis.”

Alarmingly for a sector that depends on talent and innovation, it has the third lowest training spend per employee and the second lowest spend per trainee compared to other sectors of the economy. Meanwhile, fewer than 40% of students associate creativity and a dynamic work environment with working in banks, but highly value these in any future employer.

The demand for talent already exceeds supply and this trend is set to become more acute. “The lack of gender and ethnic diversity is both a social issue and a skills issue. Talent that the industry needs is not being utilised,” argues the independent review commissioned by HM Treasury.

A number of firms are working hard at changing this. Charles Martin, Senior Partner at City law firm Macfarlanes, is clear about the value of hiring a more diverse workforce. “Firstly, it feels right. It doesn’t feel sustainable to work in a market where we don’t look like our clients or the world around us. Secondly, more diversity makes for more balanced decisions and less group think. Thirdly, we need to have the best people working for us. If we are failing in diversity, we will fail in business terms.”

MI5 plans to hire 50% more behavioural scientists in 2020 to help it analyse the vast amounts of online data generated by terror suspects. Marrying psychology and the increasing amounts of data available on diversity and inclusion is just as relevant for City firms.

These are the reasons why, with Associate Professor Grace Lordan, I am co-founding The Inclusion Initiative institute at the London School of Economics. In association with some of the most advanced City institutions we seek to merge data and behavioural science to help change culture for future success.

The City is responsible for well over 10% of the UK’s tax revenues and continues to be one of the global go-to centres for finance. With just a bit of hyperbole, Byron’s lines about the importance of the Coliseum to Rome come to mind: “When falls the City, London shall fall; And when London falls - the World.”

---

Can I take the opportunity to invite you on the 5th of March at 6pm to come to the LSE and join me for the launch of the Inclusion in the City report, which I am co-authoring with Dr Grace Lordan. This will be a panel discussion event, chaired by Dame Minouche Shafik, and feature four senior leaders from the City of London giving reactions to the messages in the report. 

The 5th of March event is ticketed and part of the LSE Festival. This year's Festival will bring together global leaders, innovators and change makers to investigate how we can learn lessons from the past, tackle the challenges of today and shape the future. You can get a free ticket online now by following this link.

It is also the night The Inclusion Initiative will be announced, a new institute at the LSE which I am co-founding. It will bring behavioural science insights to the City of London in partnership with City firms. Do get in touch if your company might be interested in exploring working together. Here is the pamphlet.