Half of all five-year-olds alive today (in the USA) will live to 100.
from a recent Modern Elder Academy email
Thought-provoking demographic factoid, huh?
While we become more aware of such increasing active longevity decades in the “developed” world, last week I was at a Grey Swan Guild event where we looked to hack some big issues facing society. One of these, captured in the screenshot above, was around the “silver wave” of elders “ageing out” of the conventional workforce at a time when we face a loss of workforce and skills globally from many directions.
We did come up with a concept of a platform with “Wisdom Tokens”, an exchange where elders could continue to contribute in different ways. Beyond that, though, what I see often in this space (around what Chip Conley calls “Modern Elders”) is a lack of recognition of the importance of this demographic shift. In the negative, it can be looked at as a gap and weakness in how employers conceive of the workplace. Reframing as positive, though, there are so many opportunities for innovation in what work may look like going into the future.
So, as a leader, take a look at your organisation and how you may look at the world of work in the future. Oh, and we know from the “great resignation” that this goes way beyond that demographic bulge of our elders and how we capture their continuing value for decades to come, it also impacts so many groups of different ages and backgrounds.
One thing is for sure, the industrial era age of “9 to 5” working in offices or factories until we retire at 65 is a model for the past, not our collective and individual futures.