“Old fossils” are the hidden gems of the workplace

There are worse things than being called an “old fossil” but when it’s your boss saying it and in the middle of a meeting it must rankle, to put it mildly.

For executive Glenn Cowie, the barb was just part of a campaign by his employer to be rid of him and replace him with someone younger because he didn’t know how to “manage millennials”.

Cowie successfully sued his company, Vesuvius, for age discrimination, after accusing it of “institutional and deep prejudice against older employees”. Let’s hope his compensation, still to be agreed, is huge considering he worked at the place for 40 years.

While this tale has a happy-ish ending, what does it say about the working culture for people past a certain age? Cowie was 58 when he was sacked, not much older, in fact, than the man who ousted him.

“Old” staff even younger than that apparently left the workforce in their droves during the Covid crisis — nearly a quarter of a million workers aged between 50 and 65 since 2020 — and are not actively seeking new jobs, new figures show.

The director of the Institute of Employment Studies, Tony Wilson, told The Times that the trend presented, “by far the most significant labour challenge we have faced in recent years — far bigger than Brexit”.

Women reportedly make up the majority in the mass exodus, which bucks a previous longer-term trend of increasing numbers of older workers.

Last year, a report by the Resolution Foundation think tank revealed that participation in the workforce had fallen by 1.2 percentage points among workers aged between 55 and 64, the biggest drop for the past 40 years.

Why are all these pre-pensionable workers leaving and not coming back? Aside from the well-publicised cases, there is no evidence to suggest they have been forced out of employment in favour of a younger cohort.

Maybe it was just Covid. The extreme measures imposed in the pandemic altered many people’s vision of their future, and an earlier than planned retirement must have seemed an appropriate response, for those who could afford it, to lockdowns that looked never-ending.

People who re-evaluated their work/life balance and decided it must tip more towards the “life” bit are no doubt now enjoying the extra leisure time.

But if employers want to recruit from the widest possible talent pool, they must address ageism where it exists so they can lure more mature candidates back to the workplace.

This not only makes sense economically — by combating labour shortages and taking pressure off pension funds — but also creates the best working environment.

Who does not remember in their first job the old-timer (that is, anyone past forty) who showed them the ropes, introduced them to office etiquette and indulged their rookie errors? 

There is a prevailing wisdom that the most successful start-ups combine the daring and energy of youth with the hard-won experience (and sometimes investment) of veterans.

Generational divides provide obvious operational efficiency, with everyone at different stages of their learning curves and, maybe, more importantly, their social trajectories.

As an oldish fossil returning to office life after a lengthy gap, I relished the company of my young colleagues but had no wish (mercifully for them) to join their after-work outings. Nor did I mind if they thought I was boring (oh, if they had seen me in my heyday!) or, well, old.

I found I became more aware of my age, which is better than being in denial, through listening all day to the peculiar preoccupations of the young. And I hope I was an example to them that there is working life after fifty.

Organisations that have cottoned on to age-blind recruitment will reap the rewards; and in the public sector, coaxing teachers, police officers, nurses and doctors out of retirement to reinforce struggling services rarely misfires. 

A friend aged 60 has just entered the civil service, after retiring from her high finance job two years ago. Her initial concerns that she was taking a job away from someone younger have been allayed as she brings her decades-long learning to bear.

Some work set-ups are clearly more enlightened than others and although age discrimination laws protect against blatant ageism — as at Vesuvius, which had a policy of not hiring anyone over 45 — low-level age shaming still drives people away.

Old people jokes are typically more socially acceptable than most other forms of prejudice, not least because age, unlike race or gender, is one thing we all have in common eventually.

And often age is treated comically by the aged themselves. But while we make light of our “senior moments”, we’re giving younger colleagues a licence to treat age slights as harmless.

David Robson, a plumber and gas fitter on the Isle of Wight, endured years of humiliation by his manager and co-workers who dubbed him “Half-Dead Dave”. He felt “distressed and embarrassed” by what, to them, was just banter, but he has had the last laugh, recently winning £25,000 in compensation after he was dismissed, at 69, on age grounds. Some £7,000 of his pay-out was awarded specifically for the name-calling.

His employer, Clarke’s Mechanical Ltd, has not only lost money but Dave’s expertise after 55 years in the trade. A stupid, if not senior, moment. 

If I lived on the Isle of Wight, I know who I would go to if I ever needed the sink unblocked.