Older workers – How to utilise older workers’ resources in business?

The amount of older persons in the total population will increase significantly in the coming decades in Europe. There are many explaining factors to this development i.a. fertility rates among women has decreased, life expectancy of individuals has risen and a greater proportion of the post-war baby-boom generation is retiring. (Eurostat 2016.) This development causes that competition of skilful employees is greater between organisations in the near future when the workforce is shrinking. It means challenges for organisations to attract new employees but at the same retain their current ageing employees. HR-professionals need to find solutions to utilise resources of their older workers and find the ways to keep them longer in their service even though advanced age workers may be perceived more as a problem than as a resource for business.

First, this essay will give insights to following concepts: older worker, old age and different definitions of age which are important to understand when concentrating on advanced age of workers. Second, elements of attitudes in work environment are presented. After that the essay concentrates to main ideas about older age workersage of workers as a problem or as a resource in business. Third, it will be showed how organisations can utilise older workers’ resources and finally, conclusions will follow.