I am a middle-aged person at the mid-point of my career. I can look back and see the strides I made over the last 20 years, and assess the disappointments. I can see where I may have gone wrong and how far I still have to go to attain the goals I had in mind as a young woman.
Generation X, of which I am a member, is the smallest of the generations currently in the workforce. We are dwarfed by the enormous Baby Boomer, Millennial, and Generation Z cohorts. It’s understandable if we’re forgotten. However, given the experience level of your middle-aged employees, and the physical and mental energy most people in their forties and fifties still have, ignoring us isn’t smart.
According to an article posted to the OER Learning page of Lumen Learning, middle-aged employees are often fulfilled, but that fulfillment is far from universal, especially for groups like women that may find barriers to further advancement:
“A number of studies have found that job satisfaction tends to peak in middle adulthood (Besen, Matz-Costa, Brown, Smyer, & Pitt- Catsouphers, 2013; Easterlin, 2006). This satisfaction stems from not only higher wages, but often greater involvement in decisions that affect the workplace as they move from worker to supervisor or manager. Job satisfaction is also influenced by being able to do the job well, and after years of experience at a job, many people are more effective and productive. Another reason for this peak in job satisfaction is that at midlife, many adults lower their expectations and goals (Tangri, Thomas, & Mednick, 2003)… However, not all middle-aged adults are happy in the workplace. Women may find themselves up against the glass ceiling, organizational discrimination in the workplace that limits the career advancement of women. This may explain why females employed at large corporations are twice as likely to quit their jobs as are men (Barreto, Ryan, & Schmitt, 2009). Another problem older workers may encounter is job burnout, becoming disillusioned and frustrated at work.”
In light of these findings, what are the best approaches to developing middle-aged employees?
One idea is to evaluate whether a high-performing, middle-aged woman or minority employee is exceling on par with high-performing, middle-aged, white male employees in your organization. For each case when you can say they are not, it can be illuminating to find out why. In some instances, the high-performing woman may have declined career growth opportunities her male colleagues said, “Yes,” to. Instead of writing the stymied growth of this employee off at that point as being her own fault, further delving is a good idea. A question an organization with high-performing women employees, who are not at the same level as their male counterparts, should put to itself is whether the organization made it too hard for those women to say, “Yes.” It may be that the work schedule and demands are so rigid and inflexible that only a male employee with a partner who is taking care of the bulk of family life is able to participate fully.
If your company determines that its demands for advancement are too rigid and exacting, it’s worth exploring new ways of approaching employee development. For example, if an employee is unable to travel frequently, maybe they could contribute by taking on an additional project, which they could work on from the office, or even from home. Similarly, an employee may be capable of working full-time hours, or even longer than full-time hours, but is not able to commit to a consistent 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. schedule. In those cases, consider whether maintaining that rigid schedule is important.
Especially in the post-pandemic era, it’s best to give employees work schedule options. To create an incentive, and accommodate mid-life employees with significant family demands, that flexible schedule could be an option only for employees who have been with the company for at least five years. There could be five options for schedules:
- 7 a.m.–3 p.m.
- 8 a.m.–4 p.m.
- 9 a.m.–5 p.m.
- 10 a.m.–6 p.m.
- 11 a.m.–7 p.m.
There would be an understanding that, once in a while, there may be an exception to the schedule they choose. If an important client needs to meet with the team outside of the employee’s regular schedule, for instance, they would be expected to accommodate, even if they only made an appearance via video from home.
With several work schedule options, and alternatives to travel, an employee with many family obligations still has the opportunity to advance in their career.
If you notice a disparity in the level of advancement attained by minority and non-minority employees in your company, you could explore providing opportunities for employees to put forward ideas and submit projects with their identity hidden. It’s disturbing to think of prejudice existing in your company, but prejudice is part of the human condition that isn’t going to be eradicated anytime soon. There are orchestras in which the musician performs behind a curtain during the audition, so the hiring decision-makers have no idea about the gender, race, age, or any other aspect of the person’s identity. Getting a chance to evaluate work with the identity of the employee taken out of the evaluation process can show you where the true potential in your organization exists. It may not be the people you, or your executives, like best or feel most comfortable with. However, these are the people who will do the best work for your customers and help you generate the greatest profitability.
A middle-aged employee also may find they are the victim of being too good at their specific job role. Career-planning conversations are always important, but they take on a heightened importance for middle-aged employees. I had the experience of losing out on a great opportunity partly because I was so good in the job role I was already in. A Learning or Human Resources representative could have said to me: “Margery, you’re an outstanding employee in your current job role. Is this the specific role you want to continue playing in our company? Would you be interested in other opportunities to take the skills and experience you have acquired and apply them to something you may be even more passionate about?”
Like all of us, your employees have an array of needs and interests. When you get to middle age, those needs can get amplified due to personal-life obligations, and pursuing those interests can seem out of reach. Organizations that meet middle-aged employees where they are to help them get to where they dream of going will be rewarded with a longer-lasting, higher-performing workforce.
Do you take a targeted approach when working with middle-aged employees? Are there needs, particular to this subset of your workforce, that you focus on and try to accommodate?
