The Older Worker Opportunity

Two powerful and persistent trends - longer lifespans and lower birth rates - all but guarantee that older people will be a significant aspect of the go-forward workforce.

Hey there, welcome to Longevity Gains!

I’ve got some good stuff for you to explore in the rapidly emerging longevity economy. But first, I thought I’d respond to some reader commentary.

A few people have been surprised by my use of “thought leadership” in the last several weeks, most notably in the context of the new Leading Expert lessons for Premium subscribers.

Personally, I’ve never liked the term thought leadership. So I guess that’s why people are surprised.

It signifies some exalted guru status, and my 25 years of online content marketing indicates something much less exclusive.

Anyone can achieve business authority with the right content, if they truly want to. I’ve done it in several industries, starting as a complete unknown in each.

That said, thought leadership is the more accurate way to describe what I’ve done over the last 25 years. And that also reflects my dissatisfaction with another term I helped popularize – content marketing.

I started doing content marketing 10 years before it had a name, and teaching it two years before. In 2008 my friend Joe Pullizi set out to convince me to use the term he coined, since Copyblogger was the largest “content marketing” resource in the world.

My main reservation with the term was that I worried people would equate content creation with marketing. The right content is the most potent form of marketing I’ve ever encountered, but that doesn’t mean content alone equals marketing success.

Now that we’ve entered the so-called “creator economy,” my initial fears have been fully realized. It’s just “create content” and the riches will follow. Yeah, right.

It’s not about content. It’s about leadership.

The term “thought leadership” was coined back in 1994 by Joel Kurtzman, editor-in-chief of the Booz Allen Hamilton magazine Strategy & Business (an early content marketing publication itself).

Kurtzman used the term to refer to people “who had business ideas that merited attention.”

If you’re educating and motivating people with content, and those people follow you on a regular basis, then you’re a thought leader. You're sharing ideas that merit attention.

As I said though, it’s not the thoughts (content) that ultimately lead to success. It’s the leadership that the content sparks. This is an important point as we face a new year with the prospect of much improved generative artificial intelligence.

If you attract and hold the attention of an audience, you’re a leader. And it’s leaders that the longevity economy needs to realize its full potential. 

In fact, you’ll clearly see opportunities to lead people in the right direction in the first resource below on the rise of older employees in the workforce. So let’s get to it.

If you’re interested in diving deep into the psychological foundations of marketing leadership join us in Premium for instant access to the Empowerment Marketing Framework and the Leading Expert series now in progress.

The Business of Serving an Older Workforce

Generation is a global nonprofit network that supports people to achieve economic mobility and a better life. They’ve just released an enlightening report that focuses on older workers and their inevitable rising prominence:

Two powerful and persistent trends, longer lifespans and lower birth rates, all but guarantee that midcareer and older workers will make up an even larger portion of the future workforce, with profound implications for our economies, businesses, and workers.

As usual, the barriers to this new reality are based on ageist stereotypes and misconceptions by employers:

Midcareer and older workers believe age is the biggest barrier they face — that’s true regardless of education background.

And their perception is accurate: the OECD-Generation survey found employers often express the belief that midcareer and older workers are less willing than younger peers to learn new technology and skills. For example, a full 25% of employers believe candidates over age 55 will be reluctant to try new technologies vs. only 8% for candidates in their 20s.

That’s an opportunity for those who want to target existing businesses as their clients. Given the perpetual labor shortage and the true nature of older worker loyalty, wisdom, and productivity, companies need your help to see the truth:

And yet, despite such negative perceptions, when midcareer and older workers get a chance to show what they can do, employers say that they consistently match or exceed the performance of younger colleagues. 89% say midcareer and older workers perform as well if not better than younger peers, and 83% learn as, if not more, quickly.

The other side of the equation is older workers themselves. As Generation X approaches what used to be retirement age, you don’t need to convince them to keep working. But you may have to help them see that new training is indispensable (and even provide it):

There is clear employer preference for candidates with recent, relevant training (48% of successful midcareer and older job switchers had training in the past three years vs. only 34% of unemployed individuals). However, too few midcareer and older workers prioritize it versus younger peers.

Creating online education and training programs for older workers is one of the biggest opportunities of the longevity economy. We’ll be covering it in greater details in the near future.

But there’s also an opportunity to consult with companies to develop the specific job training they need older workers to experience. In fact, there’s so much opportunity here you just need to dive into the report and start brainstorming ideas.

You can download the entire report (no email address required) below:

The Midcareer Opportunity: Meeting the Challenges of an Ageing Workforce (Generation)

Generational Warfare is Not Good Business

When we talk about unifying leadership of older consumers, it’s easy to start thinking in terms of generational tribalism. While we celebrate Generation X over at Further, we’re careful not to do it at the expense of people that are younger or older.

That’s obviously not always the case in the broader digital media landscape. A sure way to get clicks is to pit various generations against each other, as in the “OK Boomer” meme of the last several years.

Almost all articles with Gen Z, Millennial, Gen X, Boomer or Silent Generation in the headline are written with a significant degree of ignorance – the ageist assumption that people born within a specific time frame share the same wants, needs and behavior.

Longevity Gains readers know demographics are of limited utility, and beyond shared cultural experiences, generational labels don’t really tell you anything about your target audience. That’s why you should focus on psychographic elements like values and attitudes in addition to interests and stages of life.

Look at almost any report claiming that one age group wants something more than another and then ask yourself, Is this really about age? Chances are you'll realize that it's really about the stage of life versus the age in life.

For example, at Further we’ve come to realize that our audience is at the stage of life that has historically been about planning to retire. And yet, that’s changing with Generation X, so we need to help our people craft new attitudes and narratives about a new and different stage of life.

Plus, pitting older people against younger people is not likely to work. Most older people don’t respond well to negativity and actually want a more harmonious intergenerational experience.

And then there’s the workplace. Embracing older workers inherently involves an intergenerational labor force, and employers want to maximize harmony, not discord.

On that note, this is the advice given to companies in an article at Forbes:

Prioritize education. Engage age experts well-versed in addressing ageism nuances across the age spectrum. Make comprehensive training mandatory for all employees involved in hiring and management.

An “age expert” well-versed in the nuances of ageism and new types of education and training is exactly what you’re becoming as you dive deeper into the massive shift to the longevity economy. And there’s plenty of room for plenty of us.

Don’t Fall For Ageist Click Bait: Here’s The Number 1 Giveaway (Forbes)

Is Brand Representation of Older People Finally Here?

Balenciaga is getting props for featuring 61 year old Michelle Yeoh in a new campaign. She’s the star of countless films including Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Crazy Rich Asians, and perhaps most notably, Everything Everywhere All at Once. The latter film is the most awarded film of all time, including two Oscars for sixty-something women – Yeoh and Jamie Lee Curtis.

Increased representation of older people in advertising is crucial, so this is a good sign. But it’s really been in the narrative realm of film and streaming television that doesn’t depend on advertising support that representation has really taken off. Non-network shows like Grace and Frankie, The Komisky Method, and Hacks have been delightful explorations of older adults, even if ultimately portrayed in comical settings.

We’ve heard repeatedly that non-image-based marketing such as digital content will play an outsized role when it comes to older consumers, and this is good news for us. We’ve got the room to tell stories, educate, and persuade in a way that transcends simple images of older people in advertisements, despite how important that is to a shift to a more mature society.

With that, I’ll let you go to ponder the stories you’ll tell. Thanks for reading!

Keep going-

Brian

P.S. Today’s post from Seth Godin is a timely reminder of where you start with winning digital marketing of any kind – strategy. For older consumers, that’s what the Empowerment Marketing Framework gives you. Easily worth the price of a Premium subscription alone. Join us.