Employers nowadays may feel bombarded with advice on how to retain millennial employees. Those younger workers have the reputation of moving from job to job, so employers wanting to get the most from the investment they make in their youngest employees put a lot of energy into encouraging them to stay. But what about older employees—those who are weighing the pros and cons of retirement, maybe wondering if they’re still appreciated? Are those workers also worth special retention efforts? And, if so, what should employers do? 
“There is no substitute for experience,” Susan G. Fentin, an attorney with the Skoler, Abbott & Presser, P.C. law firm in Springfield, Massachusetts, says “Employees with a long record of experience with a company will undoubtedly have contacts in the industry that are invaluable. Any type of knowledge that is built up over time is generally hard to replace, so keeping employees on staff after what might otherwise be retirement age would work to the company’s advantage.”
Mike Haberman, a consultant with Omega HR Solutions, Inc. in Marietta, Georgia, agrees. “Older workers bring a great deal of experience to the workplace beyond job knowledge,” he says. “They bring knowledge about the value of hard work, the value of teamwork, and the value of diversity of opinion. They bring a different perspective from the millennial that may be valuable, particularly if the customers of the organization are older.”
So employers may wonder how to balance retention efforts between old and young employees, but they probably don’t need to overthink that task. “Believe it or not, older workers want many of the same things from employers that millennials want,” Haberman says. “They want to be treated well, valued for their opinion, challenged, recognized for their work, and paid a wage that recognizes their value. Offering training works well, too.”
Employer worries
Despite the value older workers bring, some employers shy away from them, thinking that they may not be up to date on technology or they might retire soon. And that thinking can hold back both employee and employer.
“Ageism is rampant,” Haberman says. “In our society, there is a definite bias against ‘old.’ Just because someone has an age that starts with a 5 or a 6 does not mean they are not capable of learning and adopting a technology.”
Haberman says employers need to rid themselves of the belief that age equals capability. “Yes, I recognize that many older workers are not as technologically adept as younger ones, but at the same time, many younger workers don’t have that knowledge either.”
Fears of retirement also are often overblown. Haberman says employers need to consider that the average amount of time an employer keeps a millennial employee is about three years. “If you hire an older worker that stays five or eight years until retirement, you have beaten the odds on turnover,” he says.
Legal threats
When talking to older employees about their future, employers need to make sure age doesn’t sneak into employment decisions, Fentin says. “Talk about retirement plans is particularly dangerous,” she says. “An employer can ask how long the employee expects to be able to commit to its organization, because that would be a question that would be appropriate regardless of age, but asking when and if an employee is going to retire smacks of age discrimination and is the type of comment that gets employers into trouble.”
Employers also need to guard against making older employees feel pushed out. The “obvious demon,” Fentin says, is the possibility of an age discrimination claim, but older workers also might be more likely to have health issues that could result in disability discrimination claims.
An employer’s best defense against discrimination claims is to make sure decisions about all employees, regardless of age, are fair, consistent, made for business-based reasons, and that there is good documentation supporting those decisions, Fentin says.
Decisions about reductions in force can be especially problematic. “Frequently, those decisions are made in meetings where minutes are not taken, so it’s really important that the business rationale for decisions like that is recorded at the time the decision is made,” Fentin says. “Of course, an employer can always explain the reasons for the decision after a lawsuit is filed, but that type of documentation is far less effective because it smells like the company made up the reason to defend the lawsuit.”
To keep decisions from “smelling” like discrimination, Fentin urges employers planning a reduction in force to develop four or five key criteria, rank the employees based on those criteria, and then justify the ranking by citing specific performance deficiencies or accomplishments. “And, again, that process must be done before the employees are told that they are being laid off, because the credibility of the rationale will be lost if it’s developed after the fact,” she says.