The Youth Change Jobs Part 2

In an earlier article, we discussed the idea that companies that focus only on hiring younger employees at the expense of the more experienced employees are taking a financial risk that may not be worthwhile. With the amount of money that is invested in hiring and training new employees, that loss alone may harm the company’s ability to perform well long term, yet there is the added – and very serious – risk that the younger employee is going to be more likely to leave the job as well, resulting in further losses once a new employee is hired. In a way it can be thought of as follows: Hiring a 24 year old employee straight out of college may net you the next business superstar, but most likely it will be a financial investment that will fall short when the employee leaves within 2 years (as statistics show most youth to do).

Hiring a 55 year old employee may only get you a max 10 years of service, but if they are qualified for the job and the proper employee satisfaction techniques are taken, getting the most of those 10 years is probably more likely, and what you lose in salary you make up for in not having to invest in new employees. This is not a scientific argument by any means – in that, as far as I’m aware there have been few studies that indicate whether or not employee loyalty is stronger in older adults than in younger adults, and whether or not that represents a loss to the company.

However, logically this does appear to be the case, as evidence does show that youth are far more likely to leave a job within two years than their older counterparts.

The issue here is not that hiring younger employees is necessarily a bad investment. Indeed, if you can get the younger employee to stick around and improve their employee loyalty, your business can benefit substantially. What it means, however, is that laying off the older employees to bring in younger, cheaper employees may not be the best strategy, and should your business decide to enact that strategy, you will have to maximize your employee satisfaction and employee loyalty efforts in a way that may require a considerable investment.

Swapping one for the other and expecting to maintain the status quo seems, at least logically, like a bad strategy, and one that could result in considerable losses for your company. Related Blog