Valuing Experience

Motivation and Rewards

All employees will perform better if they feel their work is valued, including older workers. To effectively motivate older workers, it is likely you will need to ensure they have meaningful opportunities to participate and a combination of formal and informal recognition and rewards. The recognition and rewards that are most effective match people’s needs, interests and preferred styles. This section explores some of the participation, recognition and reward strategies that have been found to usually work for older workers. Care is needed, however, to not assume that all older workers will be the same.

Do not assume that the motivation of older workers is just an issue for the older workers. Organisations have learnt to their cost that when their older workers are disenchanted, this will typically affect all other employees. One employer commented that the first indication they had of a morale problem with older workers was an increase in the turnover of their younger staff. The younger employees were looking at the older and saying ‘if this is what happens to you when you work here, I don’t want to stay’.

Creating a culture that values age and experience
If people do not genuinely feel that age and experience are valued in the organisation, then whatever else you do to motivate or reward performance is likely to be undermined. It is useful for organisations to ask themselves the following questions:

• What is the age range of our managers?
• What is the age range of our new recruits?
• Who is appointed to key project groups?
• Who is advice sought from?
• Who does the interesting jobs?
• Who is promoted?
• Who is profiled in our newsletters or publicity?
• Who speaks for our organisation?
• Who are seen as the ‘heroes’ or ‘stars’ of our organisation?
• Who attends our social events?

If older people are not regularly included in your answers, your organisation may unintentionally be sending a message that it does not value older workers. This may be reinforced by the humour, language and images that are used. It may be being fostered by the type of events that occur.

Managing change
Older workers are sometimes perceived as resistant to change. This is likely to be the case for some individuals, but often it is the way change is managed that alienates older workers.

Too often when changes are being introduced they come with an explicit or implicit message that what was done before was wrong, old fashioned or out of date. For workers who may have developed or implemented the earlier approaches, this is often demotivating. If instead, changes or developments are presented as building on past experience, taking things to the next stage, or responding to changed circumstances, the contributions of long-serving employees can be acknowledged and their experience used to help shape the future.

Leaders who want to inspire enthusiasm for the future and new ways of doing things need to ensure that their messages will resonate with older workers as well as younger workers. The messages may need to be different. One employer reflecting on an unsuccessful change process realised that whilst their younger employees responded to messages of being up-to-date with technology, increased efficiency and being a sector leader, their older workers seemed to become more resistant. It was only on investigating this later, they realised that what motivated their older workers was different. They were open to using new technology, but only if they could see how it would improve the service to their customers. In itself, new technology did not excite them. Leaders and change managers may find it useful to use focus groups or reference groups of older workers to ask for suggestions, to check what would convince them about the need for change and to test ideas and communications.

Recognition of contribution
Recognition of their contribution is very important for many older workers. They want to feel that what they have done has made a difference, that it has been useful and that it has been noticed. This recognition is particularly important in motivating people who have been in the role for a long time, or whose career has plateaued, whether by choice or otherwise.

Strategies that employers have found to work well include:
• Informal thanks from their manager and leaders of the organisation
• Deliberately passing on positive feedback from customers
• Acknowledging the contribution of individuals when projects or accomplishments are being discussed or written about
• Letters of recognition and thanks at crucial milestones or the completion of key tasks or projects
• Profiling people in staff newsletters or websites
• Ceremonies to mark people’s contribution, whether in a low-key manner over a staff morning tea, or more formal celebratory occasions.

CentrePort decided one way that they could acknowledge the contribution of long-term employees was when they were revamping the staff cafeteria, to put a display of photographs of the company’s history and some of the key people who had contributed.

Rewards
Rewarding teams
As organisations put increasing emphasis on teams, rewards, in particular informal rewards such as events or outings, are sometimes given to the team as a whole. If the team includes older workers, care is needed that the selected reward is appropriate for them as well as for other team members. Some physical or social activities may isolate the older worker and act as a demotivator. Make sure that all staff will be comfortable with an event or outing that is suggested as a reward.

Rewarding individuals
Effectively acknowledging the good performance of older workers requires managers treating all of their staff as individuals, and remembering that their needs will vary. In determining what reward or recognition strategies are likely to be effective for older workers, managers need to consider the following:

• Their family responsibilities
Older workers may be responsible for family members such as grandchildren or elderly parents or partners, and may value increased flexibility in their working hours or the ability to take time off for particular events such “grandparents’ day” at school.

• Financial situation
For some older staff, bonuses or salary increases will be important as they save for retirement. Others may place greater value on having additional leave for travel or other interests.

• Interests
If organisations use rewards such as vouchers or gifts to recognise good performance, make sure that the ones given to older workers are relevant to their interests and needs. Ideally, managers will know their staff well enough to know that they are particularly interested in music or gardening, for instance. If not, have the manager explain to the staff member that they have noticed and appreciated their contribution recently and would like to acknowledge it in some way. Have them give the employee some appropriate choices to select the acknowledgement that would be most useful or appealing to them.

The nature and the value of the gift does have some significance, but the real impact comes from the experience it provides and the tangible evidence for the employee and their colleagues, family and friends that their work has been recognised and valued.

Genesis Energy’s approach has been to develop a menu approach to possible rewards. They have found that their older workers are more likely to choose financial rewards or those that more family focused – a weekend away, a meal out with their partner – rather than developmental rewards that are more commonly selected by younger employees.