To the point: age protects against folly

When I was looking for my first job in the early 1990s, three questions preoccupied me: What do the employers I'm interested in need? What can I offer them? And: How can I convince them that I am the one who can do this best?
 

That would be different today. Everyone is talking about Generations Y and Z. Every employer who has jobs to offer asks himself: What do they want who are supposed to apply to me? How can I win them over and retain them? How can I make their work as pleasant as possible? As a result, open-plan offices are on the decline again, coffee, water, soft drinks and fruit for free are standard, and meeting rooms are feel-good and experience areas. After all, younger and younger employees have high expectations: their work should not feel like work, it should be well paid, it should allow a high level of identification and reputation, and it should offer plenty of scope for their private lives. OK?

While on the one hand an almost outrageous attitude of entitlement is becoming entrenched, on the other hand there is discussion about the increasingly aging population, which has hardly any chance of retiring at the age of 65. Continuing to work is the motto. Absurdly, workers over 55 who have lost their jobs hardly get a chance to take on a job at their level. But this is not discussed at all; those affected are left alone with their problem. Something is not right.

What do the younger ones have over the older ones - apart from the fact that they cost less as workers? They are natives in the use of social media, operate their mobile as if it were a body part, and know the demands of their own generation in detail - and thus those of our future customers. This knowledge alone can be acquired and social media skills trained; you don't have to be a native to understand what it's all about. What the young lack is knowledge about older target groups. But these are growing, while the younger ones are becoming fewer and fewer. In Switzerland, the old-age dependency ratio - the number of people 65 and older for every 100 people of working age - is 36 percent; 18 percent of our population is over 65, according to the Federal Statistical Office. Any questions?

What do the older ones have over the younger ones? They know the industry like the back of their hand and have the necessary composure not to jump on every hype immediately. They can assess developments and estimate the consequences of their actions. You can't acquire such a wealth of experience, you can't teach it; you have to gain experience yourself so that you can make use of it.

So what is more favorable for employers? Hiring a youngster who, in addition to native experience, has a big mouth that first has to be fed with knowledge? Or to accept a slightly higher salary and at the same time buy a big backpack full of knowledge and contacts? Both! For a cleverly acting and solidly positioned company, all age groups and experience levels are important, each with the right task: The young for the restlessness and the unthought ideas, the older for substance, coolness and overview. And each with great appreciation for what the others can do - no matter how old they are.

Placing job ads explicitly for young people under the age of 25 and rejecting applications from people over 55 on the grounds that they are too old (and not even ashamed of it) definitely puts us, our economy and our country in a bad way. Who is really old today at 60 or 70? Let alone in their mid-50s? And what kind of society can survive by advancing its knowledge and reinventing the wheel every day? We know that you don't get old when you lose your hair, but when you lose hope.

Especially since the core of our work hasn't changed much over the past decades: We make advertising that is meant to get noticed and move people. We make media that are intended to inform, entertain or change. But we do it all on more channels than before, faster and more simultaneously. Of course, this makes new competencies necessary - but also proven ones indispensable. Depending on which culture you look at, either the young are considered society's capital, or the old. It has not yet occurred to anyone to use all generations in a satisfying, appreciative way for the benefit of all. The old cannot do without the young, and the young cannot do without the old. It simply doesn't work. We are discussing generations Y and Z. We've already reached the end of the road when it comes to naming them. What is the next step? Generation Ä - for the elderly? Generation A - for old people? How about Generation G as in together? Why not job sharing between young and old? Cooperation instead of struggle.

There is no better way to bundle knowledge in one place, to serve the desire for a part-time job among the young and to slowly drive down towards retirement among the older ones. (Would also be a cool campaign for the RAV ...) The (few) young people change the labor market through their demands, the (many) well-educated older people end up on the scrap heap. Can we afford that?
 

Anne-Friederike Heinrich, Editor-in-Chief Werbewoche

f.heinrich@werbewoche.ch