Young Olds

Learn a trade for a rainy day. And share it.

The ‘boomers over 50’ heard their grandparents say, “Learn the art and put it aside“. And they believed in it, because animated by passion and ambition, experience after experience, stress after stress (yes, even stress is training!), they have conquered job positions that, for at least twenty years, have seen them work, at various levels, within companies or multinationals.

These professionals, managers and executives, aware that they have acquired the right skills to move forward with their careers, ready to share their knowledge with the new generation, in the mid-2000s begin to be ‘expelled’ from a world of work that favours the entry of a younger and (apparently) more agile, better prepared and cheaper workforce.

The unexpected advent of an economic crisis and corporate reorganizations related to unbridled modernization affect a very specific age group: that of 40-60 years. Men and women not yet close to retirement, but for some already too ‘old’ for a corporate system that must renew itself and save money.

These ‘Young Old People’ – as the Financial Times defined them – with proven experience are no longer able to find adequate job opportunities, nor are they able to ‘recycle themselves’ within corporate structures; they can only aspire to consultancy activities or, the more enterprising, try the way of the Start-Up.

After about 20 years, the world of work and the corporate system appear lost and disoriented also due to the pandemic that changed the rules of the game. We realize that we have underestimated, in recent years, precisely that part of the workforce who have not been given a second chance:

• Men and women over 50 with a valuable experience accumulated over years of work, masters of business dynamics and who possess those soft skills much sought after by companies: flexibility and communication skills, team working and problem solving oriented.
• Assets for companies that can ‘get trained people on a moving train’. They are able to find original solutions to make business plans and complex strategies in rapidly changing markets.
• Important human capital for those who need a generational change.

The over 50s are now ideal tutors for the growth of internal staff, being less influenced by the logic of “consortiums” or working for oneself more than for the company.

And it is to the relaunch of these ‘Young-Olds’ that, in our opinion, the work of the Head Hunters must focus. As with  art, experience should not be cast aside, but instead be transformed into precious and ‘transmissible’ skills which will increase the profitability and cultural values ​​of the company.