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Should Workplaces Be Re-Defined To Retain Older Tech Workers? (wired.com)
rgh02 submitted this article from Backchannel which argues companies "need to work harder and more persistently to attract, retain, and recognize talent" -- especially older talent:
We "elders" know perfectly well that our workplaces are by and large not about us. We don't drive how roles, functions, advancement, and success are seen. Career development options and the hierarchical career ladders everyone is expected to climb are designed for the majority: younger workers. What can be done? There has to be a systems overhaul...
The article suggests restructuring workplaces with "individual contributor tracks" which reward people who don't go on to become managers, as well as things like paid mentoring positions and "phased retirement" programs that create part-time positions to allow a more gradual transition into retirement.
The article suggests restructuring workplaces with "individual contributor tracks" which reward people who don't go on to become managers, as well as things like paid mentoring positions and "phased retirement" programs that create part-time positions to allow a more gradual transition into retirement.
Older workers should adapt with the times, not vice versa. That's the only way progress will be made.
AC because I have a feeling the downmod from some pissed off old geyser is coming...
This is what happens to an old geyser that was famous for years but is now past its prime:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
His kid Strokkur gets all the attention now.
As noted, the problem with most organizations is that there is no technical advancement track. I actually proposed back in the late 90s at one organization that we establish a full technical track that went from entry-level coder all the way up to CTO (with a layer of 'senior technical officers' below the CTO level).
Other organizations -- such as Bell Labs in its heyday -- simply had everyone as 'Member of Technical Staff', with ad hoc organization around research and technical projects.
Sadly, though, most organizations do, in fact, force technical people to become managers to advance, regardless of whether they want to or are suited for it. It's one of the reasons IT remains so dysfunctional throughout most organizations.
Bruce F. Webster (brucefwebster.com)
Most of this is garbage, however the phased retirement is something I've always believed in. I work in at an engineering space orientated firm that has been doing this since pre Apollo days. More often then not people work until the day they retire and 6 months later are back as contractors because they don't know how to do the transition to non working and more importantly the transfer of knowledge didn't happen because nobody wants to pay to have it done. A slower transition both lets people start to enjoy a bit of retirement earlier while they are a year or two younger and allows companies to see where the knowledge is actually lost and adjust.
the problem with is is your hours worked doesn't really show your salary. It becomes a mess from an insurance and overall compensation perspective to institute such a thing. Things that are hard for HR and financial planny typically don't happen. They don't like things that are hard.
When Social Security was created in the 1930's, there was 19 workers for every retiree. In 2030, there will be two workers per every retiree. It's going to get really hard to find enough under 30 people to support an aging society. The IT industry alone will have a 1.5M+ shortage of skilled workers as older workers retire and foreign workers go home.
Eating them, and maybe even spelling a few correctly.
Companies working on embedded systems for aircraft, cars and other road vehicles really care a lot about performance, especially when there are so many different CPU and GPU's on the market, all priced by the core, clock speed and pixel draw rate. If they can maintain interactivity while being able to use a cheaper CPU/GPU combo, they will.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
When I was working for a big consulting firm in 1999 there was a big push at the time to create multiple tracks of "advancement" specifically for the people that had no desire to be anywhere near the line of management.
It worked to a degree, where the "Subject Matter Expert" in their field would be brought in as a tech resource - but like many initiatives it got bogged down by more and more layers of people trying to get a "piece of the pie" and hang on to the billable hours. The loudest people and the ones closest to where the money flows will always be more successful.
The only way us "old farts" can compete is be just as nimble as the younger people and adapt to the game. Anyone who says we can't learn a new language, a new tech or whatever passes as "employably hot" never met one of us who are more than happy to come in and do what needs to be done - and we have the knowledge to Make Shit Happen. I don't need "corporate love" to keep me trained. I am a fucking geek all the way - and when I'm not writing medical interface code, I'm building/flying/racing drones, building robots, taking a plasma torch to metal sheets and building dragons for yard art, to messing with all flavors of IoT boards just for shits and giggles. It's all about attitude and a willingness to learn on your own. If there is a new language or tech I need to know to stay marketable? Then I do it. I don't wait for some employer to train me because sure as fuck if they get a client that has a need? They're not going to pay me to try and learn it - they'll hire someone else with that skill.
Just be adaptable and open to change and you'll always have people wanting to work with you and hire you to do tasks that need to be done. The only thing that is permanent in life is change - and the sooner everyone embraces that instead of whining about it the better off we'll be.
Is ageism a thing? Sure. But know your shit and be willing to eat the occasional effluvia from some corporate suit turd-hammer? You'll always make it work.
I don't bitch. I laugh about it - all the way to the bank.
There are many professions that make little provision for people who don't want to become 'managers'. The classic examples are police, nurses and social workers; if you want to carry on engaging with people, you can't accept promotion. In IT being a contractor often offers the opportunity to stay coding - though at the cost of long term stability in employment. Large organisations may have the space and sense to recognise that the geek over there knows stuff that they need to have on tap, but sadly the temptation is to assume that modern technology renders the knowledge obsolete; outsourcing is an experiment based on this hypothesis...
"AC because I have a feeling the downmod from some pissed off old geyser is coming..."
At least we old geezers know what a geyser is, you young whippersnapper obviously don't.
companies have moved from offices and cubicles to giving everyone one or two meters of desk space sitting face to face and side to side of each other
Can you cite any actual evidence that open offices are more prevalent today?
My experience has been the exact opposite. I worked as a programmer in a bullpen in the 1970s, a cubicle in the 1980s, and a real office ever since. Apple is famously moving in the wrong direction, but I don't think that is typical. I am aware of several companies that switched to quiet offices with walls.
Also, as an old geezer, I have never felt discriminated against, and I have never felt that my age or experience was a handicap. I am open to learning new skills, and often start using new tech before the younglings, but I love it when a 20-something learns about an elegant tool from a more civilized age.
unlink health care from jobs.
That can free up people who are just there for the health care
Older workers should adapt with the times, not vice versa.
Older workers are experienced enough to know that not all change is for the better.
Also, it's tough to make progress if you keep throwing out all the people who learned lessons already, and then spend the next generation of staff learning all the same lessons again.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
adapt with the times
Been there. Seen too many instances of Language Du Jour come and go. I don't want to split the office into the tabs vs spaces warring camps. I don't want to incorporate some state of the art 3D gaming graphics engine into our simple engineering app interface. And I don't need every inter-office communication in PowerPoint.
Have gnu, will travel.
Older workers should adapt with the times, not vice versa. That's the only way progress will be made.
As an old fart (look at my #), yes, old farts should adapt, but young squirts need to listen to old farts’ experience.
I'm 42, so I think I officially qualify as old. Yet, here I am still doing senior-level engineering work. I'm not a DevOps ninja (yet...) and don't code 16 hours a day, but I really enjoy my job. I'm hoping for the day that more employers will see that older workers who are still contributing aren't a drag on the company they work for -- they're the adults that are needed to redirect some of the "bright ideas" and temper them with reality and experience. Unfortunately, we're a society that worships Silicon Valley wunderkinds and 24-year-old CEOs, and even boring old school companies are trying to behave like web startups. So here's my suggestions -- companies shouldn't try too hard; if they do even some of these things they will retain talented older workers:
You would be fighting back too if bombs were ripping through your village for no fucking reason.
This is not supported by evidence. American drone strikes are widely unpopular in the muslim world. But the drone strikes are supported in the villages actually getting bombed.
It is easy to oppose the drones when you live in safe suburb of Karachi or Islamabad. It is much different if you live in Waziristan, where the Taliban forces girls out of school and boys into war. Most people there see the drones as a benefit.
For me, it was hiking the block and a half to the Italian beef stand. Had to take an Uber home, though.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Indeed! Our young architect shoved every possible layer and service he could into our MVC stack. He's either a feature pack-rat, and/or trying to pad his resume with every buzzword he can.
Most the devs are young and don't know the difference and probably want to pad their resumes also with the gizmos. Thus, development is turned into a typing contest, and young fingers will probably win that one.
My only hope is to convince the suits it's bloat and bullshit, but the architect has so far been out brown-nosing me. I probably lost this round. The suits may realize its bloat a few years down the road, but that may be too late.
I suspect the architect is intentionally trying to get rid of the old people because we know enough to question his judgement. He's using buzzwords to paint us as outdated and using a bloated stack to make it a typing contest between young fingers and old fingers. Clever bastard. He'll probably trim the stack once we are gone.
Table-ized A.I.
with automation and productivity improvements it's going to get hard to find enough work to go around. For example, with Trump & co blocking farm immigration farmers are finally implementing the kinds of labor saving practices (like growing food at waist height so it's easier to pick) that Europe's had for 20 years.
That IT shortage is a lie. I've got a guy at my job with a CS degree from a public University who's doing crap IT work instead of programming for a living. 20 years ago he would have been snapped up a day after graduation. But 20 years ago the H1-B program was in it's infancy.
There's plenty of money to go around. You're being lied to so a small group of lucky assholes can take everything. Not that I know what to do about it.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
More often than not in this context, we're not talking about management issues but technical ones. The way you (successfully) institutionalize those lessons is by having people on your staff who have worked with technology for more than five minutes and seen the problems before, so that when they come up again, you can avoid the mistake and educate the less experienced staff about what you're doing and why.
So many times in the past few years, I've looked at failures, sometimes serious ones, in software projects and thought that the only way you could possibly wind up in that position is if your most experienced technical employee was a 26-year-old CTO who thought that moving fast and breaking stuff was a good idea...
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Old engineering joke:
Henry Ford once balked at paying $10,000 to General Electric for work done troubleshooting a generator, and asked for an itemized bill. The engineer who performed the work, Charles Steinmetz, sent this: "Making chalk mark on generator, $1. Knowing where to make mark, $9,999." Ford paid the bill.
I looked around and realized that there were no older workers in my position. There are always ways to push people out the door, and they were being used. I even looked at other companies and saw the same.
I decided to get my teachers license (I already had a Masters; so it was a pretty easy process). Yes, I have to deal with middle school kids; but I look at my friends who tried to stick it out and they are doing things like delivering pizzas.
These people chose to be old. Nobody forced them. Hold people responsible for their decisions.
Damn nanny state.
I am open to learning new skills, and often start using new tech before the younglings, but I love it when a 20-something learns about an elegant tool from a more civilized age.
Interesting. I'd say the biggest difference between 20-year-old me and 30-year-old me was probably was that 20-year-old me wanted to learn All The Things, while 30-year-old me was a lot more choosey about where limited time was spent.
I find bleeding edge technologies interesting, but I only rarely spend much time on something that is still in its early adopter phase any more. Consequently, I often am a little behind the enthusiastic youngsters in adopting new tech.
However, if you look at how effectively I use the new skills and technologies that I do adopt, or the proportion of the new skills and technologies I adopt that remains useful in the long term rather than quickly becoming obsolete, older me does much, much better than younger me.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Older workers aren't obsolete, they're just more expensive
Managers need to re-calibrate their measurements
Young managers who fail to do this, or who care more about culture than results, are missing out on a vast talent pool
Shut up. Every generation says the same crap about the next generation (accept for their own spawn who are somehow angels). No generation in America has done more to destroy this country than the Baby Boomers. They will be the first generation to leave this country in worse shape than it was when they inherited it.
Want cheese and breadsticks to go with that fine whine?
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Interesting. I'd say the biggest difference between 20-year-old me and 30-year-old me was probably was that 20-year-old me wanted to learn All The Things, while 30-year-old me was a lot more choosey about where limited time was spent.
And IMO, this is a good thing because it gives the 20-something exposure and lets them see what they're really interested in, and eventually the realization that they don't know what they don't know, and never will actually know it all.
Just another day in Paradise
Older workers should adapt with the times, not vice versa.
Older workers are experienced enough to know that not all change is for the better.
Also, it's tough to make progress if you keep throwing out all the people who learned lessons already, and then spend the next generation of staff learning all the same lessons again.
You can't stand on the shoulders of giants if you keep pushing them out the door.
Just another day in Paradise
I've been in my current job for twice as long as any other job I've had in my life. However, when I was interviewing, one of the things I always said was, "if you have a tech track and a management track, I'm on the tech track."
Not everyone should, or wants to be a manager. There are far toom many people who REALLY, REALLY SHOULD NOT BE A MANAGER. On the other hand, those folks may be really good at what they do.
Do you *really* want the manager who really knows the systems in an "emergency" meeting that runs on for hours, while a new hire who doesn't have anywhere near the experience as the manager, never mind they don't know the systems deeply yet, try to deal with the disaster?
If you think it should work that way, congratulations, here's your MBA, now get out there and destroy your company, too.