Attract senior talent to your company, build for the future

We interviewed Laura Rosillo, age management consultant and specialist in human resources and learning processes. Founder of Talento CoolSenior, a company that fights ageism in the workplace with real employment solutions to attract professionals and companies.

Laura, welcome to the niikiis blog:

What projects are you working on and what are your areas of expertise?

From Talento CoolSenior we elaborate the following tasks for companies in relation to senior talent:

• diagnosis and development on the "age map" of your workforce
• we coordinate multigenerational groups in training, learning and innovation communities
• we design strategies for managing the tacit knowledge that senior employees possess
• we draw up succession, severance and retirement preparation plans.

And from the ASENCAT Association (Associació de Seniors de Catalunya) I voluntarily advise entrepreneurs and companies in the construction of business plans.

"According to a study by the Adecco Foundation, 40% of recruiters still automatically discard applications from professionals over 55 and 75% of the senior unemployed believe they will never work again."

What is happening in the recruitment area - is age a reason to discard talent?

The answer is complex and has to do with the prejudices and false myths that have been created around mature talent. Youth is associated with energy, talent and innovation and maturity with decrepitude, immobility and loss of faculties. And it is assumed that a senior worker is much more "expensive" for the company than a junior one. In the age of longevity (we have a life expectancy in Spain of over 83 years) these clichés do not correspond to reality. The healthy adult life cycle has been lengthened and the time of "old age" has been greatly shortened.

The trend in the demographic pyramid in Spain (there are twice as many of us over 50 than under 18) can help to change these prejudices because there will be no choice but to rely on Senior Talent.

What is ageism and how can we fight it?

Ageism is ageism and it is the second cause of discrimination in our country after gender discrimination.And it is the only discrimination we inflict on ourselves when we say things like "I'm not old enough for this", or "At your age...". And it is the only discrimination that we will all suffer, if we are lucky and grow old...To combat it, we just need to accept and claim the age we have and offer it as a value, that of the work experience we possess. And above all, stop thinking about "ageing" and start "planning for longevity" in order to be able to enjoy each of the stages of life.

What could a person over 55 do to get back into the labour market? What are the alternatives?

Fundamentally, I believe that it should stop asking for work (submitting CVs) and start offering services. Analyse in depth what the current needs of companies are, start from this analysis a process of training in new skills and technologies that can respond to these new market needs and present a proposal/project to the company that solves these new problems. The "my time in exchange for a salary" contract is over, we have entered the era of "my talent, my experience in exchange for an invoice".

How do you see the future of work for senior talent?

As I indicated earlier, the population pyramid indicates that a real demographic revolution is taking place in which seniors are the new professional majority and, therefore, they will have to count on us to build together this new professional world that is coming, more technological, more sustainable, more human... better.

Thank you very much, Laura!