‘Old farts’ better than younger colleagues

OLDER workers are more reliable, more productive and have fewer “bad days” in the office, researchers have found. A study that examined performance in the workplace found that age had an impact on how consistent people were at work. Senior workers were more consistent because they were likely to have a balanced routine and stable mood.

The findings could have implications for the debate about the role of older people in the workplace.

Dr Florian Schmiedek of Berlin’s Max Planck Institute for Human Development gave more than 200 workers — some aged 20 to 31 and others aged 65 to 80 — 12 tasks testing perceptual speed, episodic memory and working memory. These were repeated over 100 days. The team found that the older group showed less performance variability from day to day than the youngsters.

“Further analyses indicate that the older adults’ higher consistency is due to learned strategies to solve the task, a constantly high moti- vation level, as well as a balanced daily routine and stable mood,” Schmiedek said.

A colleague, Professor Axel Börsch-Supan, said a study in a car factory “has shown that serious errors that are expensive to resolve are much less likely to be committed by older staff members than by their younger colleagues”.

“On balance, older employees’ productivity and reliability is higher than that of their younger colleagues.” — ©