With the average Indian now just 24 years old, and with over half the population under 25, industrialists and policymakers talk about India?s demographic dividend. But along with this rosy picture, is another reality?older workers and their concerns that tend to get swept under the carpet.
While companies, especially multinationals, proclaim themselves to be ?equal opportunity employers? welcoming ?diversity in the workplace?, it is not actually happening in the Indian workplace. With all the focus on attracting the young workers and keeping them happy, older workers are, definitely, not turning out to be the first choice for employers. For MNCs that are unable to find enough workers in their own countries due to an aging and more expensive workforce, India provides a hunting ground for younger recruits.
Explains NS Rajan, partner, human capital Ernst & Young, ?There are companies that do not discriminate on the basis of age. Ability to perform is the sole criterion, but at the same time, younger workers are perceived to be more enthusiastic, innovative and ready to push themselves to the edge.?
An HSBC study in 2006 entitled, ?The Future of Retirement: What the World Wants? corroborates this. While Indian employers recognise and value the benefits of retaining older workers, they do not do as much as many of their international counterparts do to recruit workers over the age of 50. They are also the most likely to encourage their workers to take full early retirement. According to the survey, while Indian employers say that government regulations prevent them from doing more to attract and retain older workers, they are also in favour of being allowed to enforce a mandatory retirement age.
However, all the blame cannot be laid at the door of the employers. People change as they get older, and these changes create fundamental shifts in workforce capabilities. Few people over 45 can or will want to perform the jobs they had when they were 20. ?In a professional lifecycle, the worker?s needs and demands vary and change. As employees move past and transit from single hood to family and child-rearing stages, they begin to look at life differently and their priorities change. Work-life balance becomes more critical to the older worker,? says Manpower India executive director Tarun Bali.
?The fundamental question then is why is a 45-year-old looking for a job. Is it for a career shift upwards or downwards?? asks Rajan. For senior professionals who are looking for career growth, opportunities are more, but for those who are seeking a comfortable job, it?s an endless wait.
Says a senior HR manager in a private bank, on condition of anonymity, ?Many people took VRS from public-sector banks and joined private ones in the nineties. But not everybody performed well and many banks today are burdened with such people. So, recruiters need to be very sure whether these middle-aged workers will be able to deliver.?
Difference in work-styles and communication methods can also be a problem. While older workers are more balanced and stable, they are not too comfortable with too many changes.
Also, the younger-boss-older employee syndrome is another issue that is increasingly cropping up with many companies in the new economy sectors run by people in their youthful 30s.
Every industry has its own requirement of skill and experience, dynamism and innovation. But it is mostly the old economy sectors that have more experienced employees than the new economy sectors like ITeS and IT. ?Traditional sectors like banking, finance, telecom, print media, pharma and healthcare mainly consist of workers with long years of experience,? says Vipul Prakash, partner, Elixir Web Solutions, an executive search firm. However, most companies do not really bother to store data on the demographic profile of their workers, let alone strategies targeted for specific groups.
A study by Deloitte Research says that between 2005 and 2025, generation Y (those born between 1982 and 1993) as a percentage of the working population will increase from 17% to 28%. By 2025, less than 25% of the workforce will be 45 years or older, with more than 75% of the workers belonging to generation Y or even younger.
The best way to recruit and retain older workers is to try and provide them with the jobs they want and statistically speaking, the older workforce is attracted to flexible, part-time jobs that interest them. ?The employer who wins the competitive war for talent will be the one who determines how to make plenty of part-time jobs available to attract older workers and how to redesign existing jobs into part-time roles in order to retain current staff for a few years longer,? says Bali.
Indian employers are reluctantly getting into that mode. A recent Manpower survey indicated that only 14% of Indian employers have strategies in place to recruit older workers as compared to 18% in China. According to the same survey, 16% of Indian corporate houses have already implemented retention strategies to keep the older skilled workforce in the organisation.
Retraining older employees may be necessary to ensure that they have the skills that are in demand in today?s economy. With most of 50-plus workers in the country having spent the earlier part of their work life up in an era when computers and the Internet had not even entered the lexicon, technology can indeed be a sticky issue.
?Skills? reassessment is extremely important if you are planning to re-enter the job market and compete with the youth. Find out what your core skills are and how you can use them in a new job,? says Madan Padaki, co-founder and director, MeritTrac, a skills assessment company. ?While part-time work and consulting contracts are making their presence
felt, not too many companies offer them,? he says.
It may be a few more years before employers determine how to effectively offer part-time roles that mature adults would prefer. Until then, older workers must realise that finding a challenging job with a fixed and consistent part-time schedule could be difficult. Instead, it may be necessary to compromise in some ways, such as working on a project basis, with full-time hours for a few weeks followed by time off when the project is completed. ?Self-employment is also an option available but less explored,? points out Bali.