"Longevity is the biggest opportunity
of the 21st century"
The Financial Times
Unlocking the longevity Opportunity
To capture the opportunity, organizations must include longevity and aging in their people and business strategies.
1.
Make the most of the Silver Economy opportunity by managing the business implications of an ageing population. This crucially requires a good understanding the needs of older customers in product/service development teams, in marketing, sales and in the front-end.
2.
Leverage an intergenerational workforce. An age-diverse workforce coupled with a culture of inclusivity allows organizations to harness the unique strengths and perspectives of different age groups.
3.
Engage 50+ employees to avoid “quiet quitting” and to ensure they pass-the-torch to new generations. This demographic, which will stay in the organization longer, with some rekindling, can still give an important contribution.
4.
Manage extended Career Paths to tap on a useful pool of experienced professionals. With longer life expectancies, people may choose to work for more years. Phased retirement plans, flexible and remote work arrangements can make this possible.
5.
Leverage older employees talents by helping them stay relevant and productive. Invest in continuous learning and development programs for older employees.
6.
Sustain productivity and job satisfaction by launching Health and Wellness Initiatives that support the physical and mental health of the workforce, taking into account that it’s ageing.
7.
To have a satisfied workforce, be ready to offer more flexible career paths and support transitions between different roles and parts of the organization. Support multiple careers and career breaks for personal development.
8.
Manage succession planning taking into account that employees who stay in their roles longer should transition to mentorship roles passing their experience and helping to develop younger colleagues.
9.
Design workplaces and technology that accommodate all employees of all ages, including older ones.
10.
Support a culture that respects and values all generations and appeals to their different values and priorities. Ensure organizational leaders lead by example.
The fastest growing demographic
The fastest growing demographic is the one of people aged 60 and above. This trend is driven by the increase in life expectancy coupled with declining birth rates, but also by the fact that the Baby Boomer Generation (a very large cohort) is entering its senior years. By 2050, it is projected that nearly one-third of the population in super-aged countries (e.g. Japan, Italy, Germany) will be over 60.
By 2030, 150 million jobs will have shifted
to older workers globally
According to Bain&Co. (Better with age: The Rising Importance of Older Workers, 2023), in G7 countries, workers age 55 and older will exceed 25% of the workforce by 2031 (up 10% from 2011). In Italy, older workers will be 32% of the working population, in Japan over 38%. This trend is sustained by the desire (or need) to work beyond age 65: according to Gallup, 41% of American workers expect to work after that age (30 years ago, it was just 12%). Moreover, it’s not just developed economies that are affected: even Brazil’s proportion of workers over age 55 is creeping up to the midteens.
Globally, approximately 150 million jobs will shift to workers 55 and older by the end of the decade, Bain estimates (that is almost the entire working population of the US).
This is good news: older workers can help avoid a talent shortage, compensating for fewer younger workers in the years to come.
McKinsey&Co. (McKinsey Health Institute, Aging with purpose: Why meaningful engagement with society matters, 2023) esitimates that if retired workers who wish/need to work re-entered the workforce between 2% and 15% would be added to annual GDP. In Italy it would be 5.4%. So, I would say, let’s welcome them back!
Defining your longevity KPIs
Metrics to maximize the longevity opportunity.
Understanding and serving the needs of the aging population and accomodating senior employees should be top of mind. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. Metrics, to be tracked regularly and included in dashboards, help organizations understand and govern the impact longevity is having on external and internal stakeholders. Benchmarking, performed versus best practices and competitors, is key to assessing where the organization stands and where it can improve.
Here are some useful metrics:
1. Customer Demographics
- Age Distribution of Customers. Percentage of customers within each age.
- Growth Rate in Senior Customer Segment. Yearly growth rate in the number of customers aged 60 and above. This helps to assess how the distribution is likely to evolve.
2. Revenue Metrics
Which segments generate more total revenue? Which more revenue per customer?
- Revenue from Senior Segment vs revenue from other segments: Total revenue generated from customers aged 60 and above vs total revenue per other segments.
- Average Revenue per Senior Customer vs other customers: Average revenue generated per senior customer vs average of each segments.
3. Customer Satisfaction Scores
- Senior customer Satisfaction Scores (products/services): Feedback ratings from senior customers on products and services.
- General customer Satisfaction Scores: Feedback ratings from senior customers on genera satisfaction.
4. Marketing
- Engagement Rate: Click-through rates, open rates, and engagement metrics for marketing campaigns targeted at seniors vs other segments.
5. Product and Service Utilization
- Adoption Rate of Products/Services designed for seniors: Percentage of senior customers using products/services specifically designed for them or designed taking their specific needs into account.
- Adoption Rate of Products/Services designed taking senior’s specific needs into account: Percentage of senior customers using products/services specifically designed for them or designed taking their specific needs into account.
6. Technology Adoption
- Digital Engagement: Percentage of senior customers using digital platforms or applications.
- Tech Support Utilization: Number of interactions with tech support services by senior customers.
7. Health and Wellness Programs
- Number of health and wellness programs for seniors offered by the organization
- Participation Rate: Percentage of senior customers participating in health and wellness programs offered by the organization for them.
- Participation Rate: Percentage of senior customers participating in health and wellness programs offered by the organization (not specifically for them).
- Health and wellness metrics by age group
- Impact Metrics: Improvements in health and wellness metrics (e.g., reductions in hospital visits, improvements in health survey scores).
8. Employee Training and Development
- Training Hours: Number of training hours provided to employees by age group.
- Training Hours: Number of training hours provided to front-end employees on needs and preferences of senior customers.
- Employee Competency Ratings: Employee self-assessment and manager ratings on competency in serving the senior segment.
9. Partnerships and Collaborations
- Number of Partnerships: Number of partnerships with organizations focusing on senior care and services.
- Impact of Partnerships: Qualitative and quantitative impact assessments of partnerships on senior customer satisfaction and engagement.
10. Innovation and R&D
- R&D Investment: Percentage of R&D budget allocated to developing age-friendly products and services.
- Time to Market: Average time taken to bring new age-friendly products and services to market.
11. Sustainability and Corporate Responsibility
- CSR Initiatives: Number and impact of corporate social responsibility initiatives targeting the senior population inside and outside the organization.
- Community Engagement: Level of engagement with community programs aimed at seniors.
Becoming longevity fluent
Longevity fluency is the ability to understand, anticipate, and respond effectively to increased life expectancy and to an ageing population. It starts with demographic awareness (i.e. recognizing the growing segment of older adults in the population and in the workforce) and continues with understanding different generations’ priorities and needs. It results in the ability to manage the impact of longevity on the workforce, consumer markets, and societal structures. Longevity fluency is a pre-requisite of longevity-friendliness.
Overcoming
longevity's pain-points
Mistakes in dealing with longevity can be avoided.
Four generations bringing their unique experiences and perspectives to organizations is an opportunity. So is the silver economy.
But it's not all rosy. Here is what could go wrong.
Ageism
This includes all forms of discrimination and prejudice based on age that happen inside the organization and that the organization perpetrates, even without realizing it, against its clients and society. Examples of ageism are:
- Having the “implicit policy” of not hiring or promoting or training someone because too old or too young.
- Portraying older adults in a negative or stereotyped light, and under-representing them in advertising and media.
- Jokes about people’s age, ageist language, or making assumptions on competence based on age.
Lack of understanding of senior customers needs and preferences
This can result in:
- Product interfaces that are not age-friendly (e.g. small buttons, touchscreens, or complex menus) and/or that are heavy, difficult to handle, or require significant manual dexterity.
- Marketing communication that doesn’t resonate with senior values or experiences
- Limited support channels (e.g. absence of telephone or face-to-face support).
- Customer service representatives who are not trained to deal with older demgraphics
- Complex pricing structures and/or hidden fees which alienate seniors.
- Products and services that don’t consider seniors’ health needs (e.g. easy-to-read labels, ergonomically designed products, etc.).
Generational silos
According to LinkedIn research, despite belonging to a very vocal generation, 20% of Gen-Zers haven’t had a single conversation with someone over 50 in their workplace in the last year. Often, even if generations speak to each other, the exchange is driven by a functional need more than curiosity and desire to understand and engage with a different perspective. Without intergenerational programs designed to foster mutual understanding and respect, and to encourage collaboration, often generations cohbitate the organization without really producing synergies.
Underinvestment in training and development of older employees
The idea that older employees “won’t need it” (ageist assumpton: they are on their way out), are not interested or have difficulties learning new things can lead t undr-investment in older employees. The prophecy quickly self-fulfills because older employees’ skills become outdated. Moreover, they feel excluded from the future and may easily become disengaged.
Ageism won't fix itself
Organizations should take action.
What type of action? A few things to start with:
- Become more aware of your starting point and progress by:
- measuring internally directed and and externally directed ageism
- qualitatively understanding what your existing over-55 workforce needs and how the organization can support it.
- Enforce policies that prevent age-based discrimination
- Deliver training and insights on the effects of longevity, on the value of generations and on unconcious ageism to all the organizational population
- Invest in training and reskilling of the over-50 age cohorts (particularly technical training).
- Recognize that hiring on previous experience and technical fit may inadvertently result in discrimination (in this case more to the disadvantage of the young.
- Train hiring managers on inclusive recruiting and assessing practices.
- Facilitate contact and exchange between generations: it is one of the best antidotes to prejudice and stereotyping
- Nominate an age inclusion executive sponsor
Age Friendly Certification
Bain&Co. estimates that by 2031, in the G7 countries, people over 55 will represent 25% of the workforce with peaks in Italy (32%) and Japan (38%). Therefore, for organizations, it is both useful and right to engage senior workers and make them feel fully included.
To proactively signal their openness to senior workers, whether intending to recruit them or aiming to engage those already present in the organization, it is helpful to obtain the Age-friendly Employer certification. Issued by the Age Friendly Institute (represented in Italy by Learning Edge srl), this certification ensures that the organization is inclusive of people of all ages and serves as a valuable employer branding tool. In countries where seniors are actively sought by organizations, particularly in industries experiencing a labor shortage, this certification attracts more applications. It also keeps the organization accountable for meeting age-inclusion standards.
Welcoming boomerangs back
Returnships are programs designed to help people who have taken time-out of the workforce to re-enter it. A “career break” can happen for many reasons: caregiving, health issues, other personal circumstances or because someone who has retired decides to unretire. In many countries this is becoming common to due to increased life-spans (not everyone afford retirement for 20-30 years), health-spans (increasingly people are in good heath and energetic well after retirement age) and unfulfilled demand for workers (due to numerically smaller generations and their life-choices). Retired employees returning to work are jokingly called boomerangs.
Returnships for retirees have three main benefits for organizations:
- by offering returnships to former employees organizations tap into a pool of skilled professionals who hit-the-ground-running.
- even if the returnship is offered to employees retired from other organizations, boomerangs bring valuable experience and diverse perspectives
- returnships support age diversity and inclusion ensuring representation of a wide range of ages.
Embracing longevity CSR
Because organizations could play such an important role in making ageing sustainable, they should.
Organizations can play a key role in making longevity sustainable. Supporting a longevity-ready society should be part of Corporate Social Responsibility. Here are is what organizations are in a unique position to do:
- Supporting longevity-readiness in their employees’ and in their employees’ families. This means training, coaching and awareness programs:
- targeted to the entire organizational population to ensure longevity literacy and to encourage correct lifestyles
- targeted to future retirees to encourage encore careers
- Becoming ageless workplaces where people of all ages are valued and can contribute
- Advocating for an ageless society.