What older workers really really want
There’s been a fair bit of talk around the subject of older workers in the past week. How we’re an underused and under-appreciated resource and how those of us who have quit the formal, full-time workplace need to be persuaded to return to the workforce in order to plug the increasing job vacancy and skills gaps.
Proposals to help encourage older workers to come into, or back to, the workplace include what’s being called a Mid-life MOT - a supported audit of your finances, skills, health and careers - and returnships - like apprenticeships but for oldies.
Whilst both of those sound potentially valuable and interesting, the conversations have made me reflect on my own career journey, and the profound changes that I made to my working life in my fifties. And to wonder how much of what I’m experiencing and thinking chimes with all you lovely Heydayers. Experience of writing about my, well, experiences, leads me to believe the answer to that is likely to be: quite a lot.
Tumult and change
I left a long career in magazine journalism after a tumultuous period, both personally and professionally, almost five years ago, when I was at the end of my fifties. The painful extrication process left me emotionally bruised and, certainly initially, it was all I could do to just get through the days, never mind plan with any clarity or certainty what I wanted to do next.
What I did know was that I wanted to continue engaging with the wonderful cohort of older people who had formed the readership of Woman’s Weekly, which I had been lucky enough to be the editor of for almost a decade. Creating and launching These Are The Heydays was - and is - my effort to do just that, and I continue to be both thrilled and grateful that the community that has grown here and across the Heyday social media platforms and through the newsletter is such a thriving, responsive and thoroughly lovely one.
Learning from the past
Before finally landing in magazines, and with a then rather unsettlingly unfocused, but, with the benefit of hindsight, usefully haphazard approach to career planning, I had tried my hand at marketing, PR, radio and television production and presenting (which, in order, I was ambivalent about, hated, enjoyed and loved). So although my career in magazines had lasted nearly 20 years, I still had the residual muscle memory to know that a) I could consider a wide range of possible work options and b) that I had proved to myself more than once that saying “yes of course I can do that” even when I absolutely couldn’t, wasn’t actually the worst way to talk yourself into a new role. (Of course, it also meant learning fast and hoping no-one spotted you had no idea what you were doing if you did get the job!)
Building Heydays and taking on a portfolio of other roles, including being on the Board of Trustees of a think tank and a director of a not-for-profit organisation, helped me to realise that, released from the day-to-day demands of a full time job, what I valued was doing work I really enjoyed, which gave me a sense of purpose and, crucially, which gave me freedom to manage my time so that I could fully enjoy all the other things that were - and are - so important to me: time with my family and friends, hobbies and exercise.
Press refresh
There have been times over the five years when I’ve felt myself getting a little…..stagnant, but looking round for opportunities to refresh either my skills or my work portfolio, has led me to have a go at learning upholstery, doing some wonderfully enjoyable volunteering - for a cancer charity and at my local vaccination centre - and joining the team at Boom Radio where I have had a little chat slot each week (currently at 1130 on a Thursday morning, please do feel free to listen) since it launched two years ago
Something completely new
In the past year, however, the nagging feeling that I had just one more ‘role’ in me, has been growing and, thanks to an introduction by a mutual friend and one of those, you-only-realise-afterwards, life changing conversations, I met the magnificent Eleanor Mills. Having been foisted out of her long and illustrious career in newspapers (amongst other senior roles, she had been the multi-award winning Editor of the Sunday Times Magazine) in traumatic circumstances not all that dissimilar to mine, we formed an immediate connection. A connection that, due to another of those serendipitous convergence of events, has led to me becoming the Editorial Director of the vibrant website and community she has created since her departure from News UK. It’s called Noon and its mission and ethos is remarkably similar to Heydays, but rather aimed at mid-life women.
My “yes I can do that” strategy has meant I’m on another steep learning curve (and hoping, five months in, I’m managing to maintain the smoke screen around the stuff I’m still not sure about. Though there is less of that with each week that passes, thank goodness), but it’s been another reminder of what I, like everyone, is capable of learning and doing given the chance.
Employers listen up
So to employers - too many of whom still enragingly resistant to even interviewing older employees never mind actually offering us jobs - I would say: “give us a chance to show what we can do. And what our experience, expertise and hard won wisdom can add to your workforce. And recognise that we are far more likely to be at a stage in our working lives when status and pay aren’t what’s important to us. It’s flexibility and purpose that we’re looking for. “
Do you agree?
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