Hiring and Attracting Younger Employees
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Anonymous
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I have to share as too funny. My company in Virginia has a lot of older workers in the range 52-64. We also don’t have maternity leave or paternity leave we only offer the traditional STD and use of sick days for women.
Anyhow talking HR and succession planning with a women I work with and she suggested if we offered maternity leave and paternity leave it might make company more attractive younger people like her. I almost spit up my coffee as women is 36 has two kids and thinking of having a third. In her mind she is young? Does she not keep track her own age? One of my prior companies we had same issue and wanted to bring average age down. Most of management around 55. To lower average age and bring in future leaders we started a formal internship program and brought in 20 interns each around 20 years old. Some took Job upon graduating and did it 3-4 years till we got 20-30 new employees aged 21-24. Those are young people not her. And add to madness a 38 year old guy added I am getting married soon and yes paternity leave would be a perk to attract people my age. Dude you are 38. Then to add to final insanity both in prior conversations said they like to retire around 55. The gen x and boomers in charge are like I will work till 65-70. Do today’s 35-40 year old think they are young? My first real job my SVPs and EVPs were 35-40, managers 25-34 and staff was 21-24. Yet in 2025 36 is younger. Or maybe Covid threw their clocks back 5 years. |
Anonymous
| If you are 52, then 36 is young. |
Anonymous
| If you are 21, then 26 is old. 😁 |
Anonymous
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36 is young for your organization, by your own admission.
Spitting out your coffee in shock at the temerity of an employee's request for paid parental leave means you are an old and that person is a young. Your org is not going to be successful recruiting and retaining the young employees you say you want to have if you just implement your dated view of Who Employees Are and What They Want. |
Anonymous
If the age range is 52-64 then hiring a 51 year old would bring the average ago down. Hiring a 35 year old would bring it down even more. Do you know how to calculate averages? Also many people in the 30-40 range had careers stunted by various recessions and slowdowns- layoffs, etc. I was not a manager until I was 40 and don't really think that makes me a bad person for asking for work perks, etc. |
Anonymous
| Yes, to answer your question, perception of age has changed. People often start working at 24-26 after taking longer in college or doing grad school. Then they have kids at 30-40. I’m 47 but work with people age 30-70, so 36 is “young” on the spectrum. |
Anonymous
| Hey J1, J2, J3 guy how's it going! |
Anonymous
| Yes. 38 is young and many people are starting families then. I'm 45 and want to retire at 55. I'm done working. I want to live, volunteer, enjoy the world. If we had more vacations and 35 hr workweeks,'I'd work longer but I'm exhausted. |
Anonymous
| Why would age matter? You should try to hire good employees, regardless of age. |
Anonymous
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Well at first company I was at Board and Regulator brought up succession planning based off average age of employees and our long term plans to train and mentor staff to take these roles
If I have for example 100 people who are 60 and want to reduce that average age quickly we brought in around 11 new employees from intern program around 21 years old. It dropped average age to 52. Hiring people at 40 in a place with a lot of 60 year old's barely moves the needle. Plus they are expensive. And time is not on their side. And they are impatient. Meaning someone at 35-38 who has been passed up for promotions etc last 1-3 jobs who is still staff wants it now. They are not hanging around 5-8 years waiting for the job to open. And by time job opens they will be old too quickly. Which is why interns and college hires has been the way big 4, nursing, law, as you have a good 10-15 years before they demand Partner or VP etc A 36 year old does not have that luxury of time |
Anonymous
Agreed, but there needs to be a balance. If the majority of your workforce is over 50 then in 15 years time your company will disappear when they retire. You need to have a steady stream of younger people and give them time to build up skills and institutional knowledge so they can effectively replace the retirees when the time comes. Allow for career changes through, if there are 30/40 year olds in your intern class then no big deal, they still have at least 25 working years left. The only advantage of actual youth is probably their knowledge of technology and modern communication methods like social media. Teenagers have always been at the forefront of that front and been the ones to teach their parents and grandparents. |
Anonymous
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I’m 47 and view 36 as young.
I have a cousin in her 50s who tries to make me her age. We aren’t. It’s a weird thing that people do when they are insecure about aging— they try making everyone seem old because misery loves company. |
Anonymous
But that is the problem. In the 38 year old case she said same thing about 55. But the spot she is headed towards has a 52 year old boss who wants to work to 67. So the 38 year old will be 53 when job opens. How does that work with someone who wants to retire at 55. It seems the Boomers and Genx all stay to 65-67 but Millennials want to retire at 55. It forces company to go to Gen Z for future leaders Last month having dinner a younger cousin my jaw fell as she is 45 and sick of work. She is working with financial planner and has it all set up to retire at 55. So she is retiring at same time as her boss who is 10 years older. So at 45 she needs to groom a younger staff to take on her boss role. That is odd but very common now. To be perfectly honest my last role I worked with a bunch of 22-26 year olds which in my 60 person dept was a massive breath of fresh air. They had four of us older people and I was in charge with other three "gray hair" old timers of managing. They were fantastic. The energy, the teamwork, nearly all single, young, willing to work. Was such a happy place. In end I learned way more from them. I became a much better person too, I felt I got my energy back and was alive again. Somehow I could work 50 hours a week, hop on a plane, go out in NYC and find myself at a club with my teammates 30-35 years younger rocking it and back at work fresh as a daisy at 8 am. It brought back the 24 year old version of myself. Somehow a 36 year old and a 38 year old dreaming of retirement more than what's ahead of them is depressing. The 21-26 years old were full of energy it was infectious. If I was driving a 20 year old car with 200,000 miles and falling apart would I replace it with a 10 year old car with 100,000 miles? No I would want brand new. I felt like that with the fresh college hires |
Anonymous
| You guys get trolled by J1/J2/J3 guy so easily... |
Anonymous
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OP sounds out of touch. Degree and experience requirements are increasing, time to promotion is increasing, and older managers are hanging around until they die instead of retiring and making room at 58 like they used to. The days of making partner at 32 are long past.
Meanwhile the age of first marriage and first kid are also increasing, and 36 was never old for having kids even in medieval times (just probably not your first kid at 36, back then). So yes, 36 is younger and parental leave is an attractive perk to people in their 30s. Get with the times. |