Age 50 plus - potential employees - Employers seeing 'millenial' employess as inexperienced.

Employers often fail to appreciate the experience

that older workers have to contribute to the workplace

Many employers are quite stupidly ignoring the decades of life and work skills that older employees can bring to a company.

Whilst we may hear of employees going on well past their retirement age because they like working and the job, they are sadly in the minority.

In the last century to date, people have been looking younger for longer. 60 is no longer seen as old, people who were 60 in 1939 looked 80 plus now. People who are 60 now were in the vanguard of the young once.

Evolution has taken steps and the next one is automation

There is supposedly 'ageism' legislation, but many employers are skirting this issue by looking at identifying pointers to eliminate applications from older people to interview.

They pursue the 'least cost option' of employing the youngest and least qualified, to whom they can pay the least.

They are sadly, missing out on employing people with real skills and experience who could enrich their workplaces.

Part of the 'education' system of recent years has been to 'breed in' a situation of dependency, creating a 'risk averse' and 'hands-off' generation. A generation that has been nannied to and hectored, not encouraged to take reasonable precaution and learn by practical experience.

The health and safety culture has deliberately engineered this dependency to the degree that in some large public establishments and corporations, a simple changing of a light bulb now generates the requirement for a 'professional' to attend a failed lightbulb, put out cones, erect a platform and replace said bulb, whilst charging around £100.00 to do so.

Common sense and a step ladder would have been cheaper and just as safe.

 

Sir John Harvey Jones, Management guru and Management consultant and genius

The affable Sir John Harvey Jones, never far from his trusty pipe

The late Sir John Harvey Jones was a very experienced business man who ran the major chemical firm ICI, before branching off into business consultancy.

He came over as an affable fellow, humourous, ponderous and rarely away from his trusty Briar pipe which no doubt helped him function.

Sir John came to general prominence from his work on the BBC TV series 'Troubleshooter', although known as a former head of Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI), the television exposure really made him a household name as ICI as a company already was in its own right.

The premise of the television series was that Sir John would visit a company that was either ailing or seemed to be stuck in a rut and he would go and visit and ponder the solutions and advise them of the best course of action to take.

There is no doubt that not only did he turn round a good few companies and put them on the road to success, he inspired other company people to adopt some of the common sense that he had shown in the series and improve their lot.

I remember one good piece of advice, it was 'The least cost option is not the best option.' Now, I have seen this advice ignored countless times in the years since.

In the current employment situation, I have learned from agencies that companies are seeking to employ the people they can pay the least to, often this means that they are also the least suitable to fill the job. Time and again, I see the same companies re-advertising the same jobs.

Do these pillocks not see that they are going about this the wrong way? They employ someone and 2-3 months later go through the same process. They waste 3 months of progress and a further 3 months to get back to where they should be, if that new person stays.

And that's cheaper? And that is better for your business going over the same ground twice to get back to where you want to be 6 months down the line? It speaks volumes about these employers. They haven't got it.

I learned a lot from watching the Troubleshooter series that he made and the information he I parted is relevant today as it ever was. It was built on real world experience, observation and common sense.

We have no shortage of management consultants around today, but in my experience many of these fall far short of Sir John's ability.

Many of the new breed of consultant do it because they are otherwise unemployable. They would learn much from Sir John's sage advice and thinking processes.

Sadly, I have seen a fair selection of bullshitters and fakers posing as consultants in recent years. It wouldn't be so bad if they actually had some idea of what they should be doing.

And it is amazing that some senior company people are unable to see through the fug and haze and view the Emperor's new clothes as portrayed by the bullshit merchants as great, when those at the lower end of the company can see right through the charade. 

As in the last place I worked. They employed a right dick of a consultant, it took me no time to see he was useless. The management seemed unable to. But eventually his bullshit and lies unravelled him.

So why not become a modern business consultant? I mean, you can charge some one a lot of money to give them duff or bad advice, really screw up the company and walk away from it without any comeback.

So why didn't I think of this as a career path?

Sadly, I have a sense of responsibility and if I advise someone it is the right and proper information. And I know what I am doing. And it is free.

I take my cue from Sir John Harvey Jones, he was a great example of the right way to observe, evaluate and advise. He was the best business consultant I have ever seen operate. He is sadly missed but an inspiration and example of the right way to do it.