Wit Ventures: The Benefits of Hiring and Retaining Older Workers.

Friday, 26 October 2018

The Benefits of Hiring and Retaining Older Workers.

From Louis Pin, Sarnia Observer.

Sarnia’s workforce is not getting any younger. One in every four people in the regional is now 55 years or older and the average age of residents in Sarnia and Lambton County is 45, a full four years older than the provincial mark.

Those numbers are not expected to decrease any time soon.

That’s the crux of a seminar Nov. 7 hosted by the Sarnia Lambton Workforce Development Board, about how local businesses can improve by hiring and retaining older workers. The employer-focused session will come with two reports surrounding Sarnia’s workforce, local trends, and suggestions for business owners.

“Flexibility is going to be key,” said Shauna Carr, executive director of the development board. “We’re finding a lot of our older folks want to re-enter the workforce . . . if employers are flexible (with their needs) they’re going to get and keep really great older workers.”

Having older workers pays dividends, Carr added, both in teaching younger workers and fostering the soft skills employers say are lacking in the workforce. Those soft skills include teamwork, punctuality, customer service, and other job-applicable actions not addressed in a degree.

It remains one of the qualities most requested by employers in the annual Employer One survey, conducted by the development board every January.

Link to the rest here.

Image. Courtesy Shauna Carr, Sarnia Lambton Workforce Development Board.

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Shirley D. Neal

Shirley has over 30 years of experience in such diverse businesses as financial planning, manufacturing, and supply. Her education includes a B.A., B.ED., M.ED., C.F.P., N.L.P. and the home inspector’s course as well as having her AZ license for five years. Her family home has given her and her husband the opportunity to do extensive renovation and repairs thereby increasing the value about $100,000 in ten years. She has been able to see firsthand how much a sensible and cost efficient renovations can add to the value of a home. Shirley has chosen joint ventures because she thinks that her experiences an help others achieve their goals and maximize the profits for both parties. In 1979, Shirley became involved in a small group of women who started a metal manufacturing company making small deep drawn metal parts for the automobile companies in Windsor. They took the company from start up to over $400,000 in sales in five years. That was a lot of parts since the parts sold for only five cents per each. In 1985 they sold the company to one of their customers. Whether it was selling mutual funds, teaching foster parents how to recruit foster parents, or working for Tony Robbins, Shirley has put more than 100 percent into every endeavour she was involved in.