Amid today’s talent shortages, older workers remain one of the most overlooked sources of skill and experience. Isaac Agbeshie-Noye, Ed.D., of the SHRM Foundation joins Nicole Belyna to share how HR teams can overcome biases, engage older talent, and reimagine recruitment, retention, and development strategies for a rapidly growing segment of the workforce. This podcast is approved for .5 PDCs toward SHRM-CP and SHRM-SCP recertification. Listen to the complete episode to get your activity ID at the end. ID expires October 1, 2026. Subscribe to Honest HR to get the latest episodes, expert insights, and additional resources delivered straight to your inbox: https://shrm.co/voegyz --- Explore SHRM’s all-new flagships. Content curated by experts. Created for you weekly. Each content journey features engaging podcasts, video, articles, and groundbreaking newsletters tailored to meet your unique needs in your organization and career. Learn More: https://shrm.co/coy63r
Amid today’s talent shortages, older workers remain one of the most overlooked sources of skill and experience. Isaac Agbeshie-Noye, Ed.D., of the SHRM Foundation joins Nicole Belyna to share how HR teams can overcome biases, engage older talent, and reimagine recruitment, retention, and development strategies for a rapidly growing segment of the workforce.
This podcast is approved for .5 PDCs toward SHRM-CP and SHRM-SCP recertification. Listen to the complete episode to get your activity ID at the end. ID expires October 1, 2026.
Subscribe to Honest HR to get the latest episodes, expert insights, and additional resources delivered straight to your inbox: https://shrm.co/voegyz
---
Explore SHRM’s all-new flagships. Content curated by experts. Created for you weekly. Each content journey features engaging podcasts, video, articles, and groundbreaking newsletters tailored to meet your unique needs in your organization and career. Learn More: https://shrm.co/coy63r
[00:00:00] Ad: Today's episode is sponsored by iSolved, a provider of human capital management solutions that help organizations recruit, retain, and elevate their workforce More than 195,000 employers in 8 million employees rely on isolved people cloud to connect HR, payroll, benefits, and talent management in a single platform.
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[00:00:30] Nicole Belyna: We often think innovation comes from the youngest person in the room, but one of your best new hire is 60 years old, or 65, or even 70. Welcome to Honest HR, where we turn the real issues facing today's HR departments into honest conversations with actionable insights. I'm your host, Nicole Belyna. Let's get honest.
[00:00:52] Here's a stat that might surprise you. Workers ages 65 and older now represent around 7% of the US workforce. That's according to SHRM's latest data, brief. Older people in the US labor force experience is an asset. So today we're diving into one of those most overlooked talent pipelines in the workforce.
[00:01:15] We'll unpack one, why so many older workers are overlooked. Two, what HR teams can do to reimagine recruitment, retention, and development strategies for older workers. And three, how to answer some tricky questions that some HR professionals might be afraid to ask. Joining us is Isaac Agbeshie-Noye, no program director for the SHRM Foundation's Widening Pathways.
[00:01:41] To Work initiative. Welcome to Honest HR Isaac.
[00:01:45] Isaac Agbeshie-Noye: Thank you. Great to be here.
[00:01:47] Nicole Belyna: Yeah, my pleasure. So, according to SHRM's report, this is an area of untapped talent that is one of the most fastest growing segments in the US workforce. So, Isaac, let's dig right in here. What do you think is driving this trend?
[00:02:04] Isaac Agbeshie-Noye: Well, that's a great question. There are a couple of things I think to consider here. First is that we have a large population of folks that are aging, and so we have just more people around. But on top of that, people are living longer and life is getting more expensive, which is requiring people to actually be in the workforce.
[00:02:28] Longer than we have traditionally. And so I think that those two for those forces are kind of coming together to create this large pool where traditionally we would have assumed people would be going into retirement or they would be pivoting in careers, or they would be taking on other more civically minded responsibilities.
[00:02:51] But we are in an era where people are having to work longer, and so,it's not surprising that this area of untapped talent is actually growing.
[00:03:02] Nicole Belyna: Right. Right. And so how should HR professionals interpret that information?
[00:03:07] Isaac Agbeshie-Noye: I think that there's a really great opportunity here because the talent pool is widening.
[00:03:13] We have a, population that is experienced in understanding the world of work. They just need to be upskilled on some of the things that are constantly changing related to the world of work. But that offers a bit. Stability and consistency, I think for a wide range of HR professionals across industry because you do have folks that have been socialized to the workforce already that know, and we would hope would have a deep understanding of what their skills are and are interested in learning more so that they can still actively contribute.
[00:03:50] And so I think that there's just. A lot of great opportunity for HR professionals to really consider as they are figuring out how to tap into the, this segment of our workforce,
[00:04:04] Nicole Belyna: Right, yeah, there really is. And so thankfully, the SHRM Foundation has developed the widening Pathways for work initiative to help organizations and HR professionals better engage this talent pool.
[00:04:18] And so. Can you walk us through how this initiative supports HR professionals in attracting, retaining, and developing older employees?
[00:04:29] Isaac Agbeshie-Noye: Yeah, so what we're thinking about here, which is particularly important for us to consider is that. we are trying to figure out what are the strategies that work best when it comes to engaging older employees, and how can we then scale those?
[00:04:45] And so I think that where HR professionals get exhausted is that they think that they have to commit to. Every possible promising practice in order to engage older employees when actually based on your organizational context, you may just try one or two things to see how those things actually fit.
[00:05:06] And so part of it may be thinking about where you're going to go recruit. Part of it may be doing a benefits review to see what types of things would. Appeal to employees who are older compared to those who are younger or are newer in their careers. Part of it might also be asking and having upfront conversations with folks around where they're looking to go and what they're looking to do with their career and whether they.
[00:05:31] See those opportunities or helping them to see those opportunities within the company. And so there are quite a few options that people can explore. And what we try to do in the Widening Pathways portfolio is to figure out how do we create those easy buttons for employers to then start committing to those practices.
[00:05:51] And so we try to identify where are the things that. What are the initiatives that are already working well? what do we know about them? How can we use them as sources of inspiration for other companies to be able to lean into them? Where do we need to develop more resources and more content so that people are feeling much more prepared?
[00:06:13] Where does it, where is there an opportunity where someone needs a toolkit to just understand what to do? Versus where do you need a mentor, where you need to actually talk to somebody to really figure out how to best engage? A lot of our work in the foundation is really trying to figure out contextually where people are so that we can get them the supports that are most needed for getting them to where they would like to be.
[00:06:37] Nicole Belyna: Yeah, that's great. And I love the point that you brought up about, you know, taking it one, one bit at a time. And so maybe it's prioritizing, what's important to the organization. Maybe, you know, align with the challenges, you know, or priorities that they have within their organization. And, not biting off too much at one time.
[00:07:01] you know. So they, they don't risk getting overwhelmed, you know, and kind of taking one step at a time.
[00:07:09] Love that the foundation offers these toolkits, or even do they need mentorship. So there really is a lot of different avenues that HR professionals can take if they want to, dip their toes into, this talent pool For sure.
[00:07:27] Isaac Agbeshie-Noye: Yeah, and what's exciting about that is that you get to choose your own adventure. And so, you know, just depending on what you understand about your organization or where you feel like the buy-in is, there are some things that require a lower lift or a lesser lift than others, and we encourage people.
[00:07:45] All, just any feedback and any data you can get from any of those things will be useful in helping you enact the next thing.
[00:07:52] Nicole Belyna: Right. So let's talk about, you know, these older workers. What unique strengths and perspectives do older workers bring to the workforce that organizations might be overlooking?
[00:08:05] Isaac Agbeshie-Noye: So I don't wanna typecast everybody, but I will say that as we're thinking about older workers, there are a couple of things that I think would be worthwhile to consider.
[00:08:16] As I mentioned before, you are dealing with folks that are, have been. Highly socialized to the workplace already. And so you have folks that can actually hit the ground running once they have direction regarding what is expected of them and how the organization has built a culture around those things getting done.
[00:08:35] And so I think that that is a great asset. We have been living in this time of unprecedented change, but for our older workers who have been through quite a few generational shifts. Social shifts. These are folks that have seen a lot and they have seen, and they can actually see the arc of where we have come in terms of the culture of work, the technology we use at work.
[00:09:03] And so you have folks that are primed to be adaptable in a lot of different office and workplace environments. Which I think is particularly important. You have folks that are, have been socialized in an age of hierarchy and will be wanting to, will want clarity regarding what is in their purview, what do they have autonomy to do, and what are things that they need to run up the flagpole per se.
[00:09:28] And that is a. That is a skill that's very hard to teach. people usually gather that by having years of experience in the workplace. And so that is definitely an asset, and a perspective that I think older workers also bring. And I think the last part, just thinking. Beyond the here and now and what the impacts might be over time.
[00:09:51] I think that that is also something that, that's also great perspective that older workers offer because they've many times have been committed to a. Understanding how their work is contributing to where an organization is going, but they've seen an organization from its start and through many different iterations.
[00:10:11] And so having those types of perspectives I think do bring great value to organizations, and they are things that I don't think that employers should be overlooking as they're thinking about who can contribute best to their business objectives.
[00:10:28] Nicole Belyna: Absolutely. And so are there industries or roles where.
[00:10:33] Older workers are particularly underrepresented today?
[00:10:37] Isaac Agbeshie-Noye: Well, I do think that in because of the revolution, I think that's coming as AI is being integrated into the workplace. I do think that our areas that are. Focus much more on digital, digital literacy and digital skills. Yeah, those are areas where we may see some underrepresentation.
[00:10:57] I think that also your roles that are, that are requiring, Immense physical labor are a lot of movement. I think we see in those roles we've made particularly, we may have made some assumptions about their ability to do the work. and so I think that there are a couple of industries where we may see some underrepresentation.
[00:11:20] I still think that there's a lot of opportunity there because of the ways in which roles are shifting. Quickly. And so the quicker that we can get to identifying what skills we actually need in order for that job to be done, while we're also integrating technology to help us get some of those jobs done faster and accurately, I think that we'll see kind of more opportunity to embed older workers in the workforce in areas that we haven't actually imagined or thought.
[00:11:53] Or thought that they could contribute before.
[00:11:56] Nicole Belyna: Yeah. And so you just mentioned something, you know, making sure that we really identify the right skills that are needed for the roles. And so, you know, with that, I would love to know from you what recruitment strategies you've seen successfully overcome age-related biases.
[00:12:17] Isaac Agbeshie-Noye: Yeah, so what we encourage folks, as a part of the work that we do with our Center for Our Skills First Future, we encourage employers to really have a reflective conversation around the jobs that need to be done and what skills in particular are needed to do those jobs without us focusing on.
[00:12:37] Credentials per se or degrees. Can we actually just name what are the things that I need somebody to be able to do in order to be successful in this job? And then we would have to figure out our, approaches to then thinking through how do we go about assessing whether or not somebody is good at that thing.
[00:12:58] For, to make sure that they can then come in here and contribute in ways that we need them to. And so when we think about recruitment strategies to successfully kind of overcome some of those biases, I do think that it is as simple as us being really clear about what is it that we're looking for and how will we know when we see it.
[00:13:19] And so experience has. Historically been an indicator of that. But we have to think, even in the interview when we're talking about having somebody recount for us the types of things that they've done in their career, can we get more granular to get them to walk us through the process and to. To, simulate for us what it was like to actually be in it and to be in the experience so that we're getting as rich a picture of what this person can do based on what they have previously done, rather than relying on, just the resume alone.
[00:13:57] Because we also find with older workers undersell themselves a great bit. Because they have been in the workforce so long, it's hard to understand which experiences are relevant and which aren't. And so it really does take some teasing on both ends, both on the job seeker side and on the employer side to really understand the breadth of what somebody can do.
[00:14:22] And so I would say that, you know, there are, there's work. On both sides to be done. But I think that it will be important to figure out from the employer angle, what exactly are you looking for? What are the indicators that you're going to point to, to know that that person can deliver on that skill, so that you can make the best decision possible for you and your organization?
[00:14:45] Nicole Belyna: Well, and really that's good counsel. For attracting and retaining talent at any age, right?
[00:14:52] Isaac Agbeshie-Noye: . Yeah. And so that's the part that we were reminding folks too, is that yes, we do want to, we want to focus on older workers as an untapped pool, but ultimately we find that a lot of the strategies that.
[00:15:05] Benefit. The untapped pools actually are for the good of all talent. Sure. And so, if we are able to get this right with this population, we're unlocking all the potential that we have to create just a wider, pool of talent from which we can extract very qualified candidates that can go on to do some amazing things.
[00:15:28] Nicole Belyna: No, no, it's just good. Just good recruiting. So, once older workers are onboard within an organization, how can HR teams ensure that they continue to remain engaged once, once they're onboard?
[00:15:44] Isaac Agbeshie-Noye: So I would always recommend for HR professionals to pay attention. It's really important to be using all the different engagement opportunities to see where are people plugging in and where are they not?
[00:15:59] And so collecting or I think taking advantage of that data to see what types of events are people participating in, what types of benefits are people taking advantage of? When do people, do people respond to the surveys and other things that you put out there to gauge what employers are feeling if they are responding.
[00:16:20] What are they telling you? If they are not responding? That's something that we need to explore. And so there a lot of the data that is collected to help understand employee engagement. I think that you have to put an additional lens on to under to really be curious around when workers, older adults in particular are choosing to engage and are not.
[00:16:43] If people are choosing to take advantage of a certain benefit and they're doing that much more than their. Thinking about engaging in social activities, I think that that's fine. It's just helpful for you to know the types of things that are going to appeal to that population. And so I think just being really curious about what engagement looks like and what responsiveness you're getting based on the opportunities you're putting in front of people is probably a great place to start.
[00:17:14] Nicole Belyna: Sure. Yeah. I mean, the fact that. You getting the feedback is, a great step in the right direction. And then as you mentioned, listening to that feedback and certainly, you know, HR professionals today have gotten wise to understanding that benefits are not necessarily one size fits all. They can't be, you know, when you've got five .
[00:17:36] Generations in the workforce. And so, you know, listening to those older workers and understanding what benefits are important to them. I think is great counsel.
[00:17:48] Isaac Agbeshie-Noye: . Yes. And, and, and to your point, the types of things, even when we are in the same generation, the types of things that we care about are just starkly different now.
[00:17:58] we just all have so many interests and. so many reasons to engage. And so yeah, I think just being mindful of that is important. And then reminding yourself No feedback is feedback, but it's feedback without context. And so that's why I keep mentioning the word about curiosity because you really do have to be asking yourself why is.
[00:18:22] All the time. and then figure out your channels for where you're gonna go. Try and get closer to the answer. Is it a focus group? If you're not getting people to respond to surveys, is it a focus group? Is it some, like a, some type of pop-up engagement opportunity where you are stationed outside of an elevator and asking people, Hey.
[00:18:43] Have you heard about this thing? we have, I, come from a background in higher education working with students and we really had to fig, we had to chase them around that campus to figure out how to get their perspectives on anything. And so there's just a lot of, I think that there's a lot of opportunity there to try and figure out what's sticking and what is working well for folks and to try and figure out how you can tease some of that feedback out.
[00:19:08] Nicole Belyna: Yeah. Well, speaking of curiosity. So HR professionals often have questions about employing older workers that they might hesitate to ask out loud. And so these are things that can feel uncomfortable, but if we don't ask them, we miss the opportunities to truly be inclusive workplaces. And so I was hoping, Isaac, that we can tackle three questions like this head on.
[00:19:37] Isaac Agbeshie-Noye: Yeah, let's do it.
[00:19:38] Nicole Belyna: All right, let's go. So how can an HR professional handle performance issues with an older worker without being accused of age discrimination?
[00:19:48] Isaac Agbeshie-Noye: Yeah, this is a great one, and I know that it's a fear for a lot of folks. And so, the, best advice that I can offer here is that we need to focus feedback specifically on behaviors and things that are observed.
[00:20:03] And so if there is something that you are seeing in terms of performance, you need to name it, you need to name it in a timely fashion, and you need to be. Particularly, tactical about communicating what the issue is. and I think getting in a practice of that so that it is aligned with this is the expectation of the job.
[00:20:31] We've set the expectations up front. This is what the task at hand is. This is where, you are not performing in a way that we require or we need. Then at the end, which is always the important part, is you need to put out there, what is it that you feel like this person can do based on your understanding as a manager of their skills.
[00:20:54] What is it that you feel like this person can do to rectify this performance? And I think just being clear about that so that, it's not associated with the person's experience, it's not associated with any of their characteristics. It's associated to the expectations that were set to the job and how that person is performing compared to those expectations, I think will be particularly important.
[00:21:21] And that's, yeah, that is the case for age discrimination, but that helps you with any discrimination. if you can be as clear as possible regarding how the expectation was set, what was set, when something expected to be delivered on, and then if. Expectations were not met. You're talking about that in a timely fashion.
[00:21:43] And I'll just mention here also, which is great practice for HR professionals in general to just be encouraging hiring managers to be having this conversation about performance. Regularly, and so you would never want to wait six months to tell somebody about the wrong thing that they did six months ago.
[00:22:05] That's exhausting. And also it's not productive because the person is no longer thinking about that as a lived experience. They've moved on. And so, so trying to create some opportunities to be an ongoing conversation, I think will, help a allay that fear a bit too.
[00:22:22] Nicole Belyna: Yep. No, that's great. Ongoing dialogue and of course, you know, coaching to be productive and helpful certainly has to be timely.
[00:22:31] So yeah. Again, great counsel for, any employees, right? For, people, managers. So this question has come up a lot on SHRM Connect, which is our forum for SHRM members to discuss all of their pressing HR topics that come to mind. So how should HR handle situations where there's pressure from leadership, or perhaps even an unspoken expectations for older workers to retire, even if they wanna keep working?
[00:23:05] Isaac Agbeshie-Noye: Yeah, so this is an interesting one, which I really do enjoy, because this is also an ex, this is a lived experience that I, that, a parent of mine had where he felt like he was getting a lot of pressure from his organization to retire because of his age. And, I wanted to remind him, which I will remind our, audience, the decision to retire is actually the employees.
[00:23:31] And so regardless of where the pressure may come from, I think when that pressure comes, it's helpful to remind leadership that this is a decision that the employee has to come to. We don't have any insight into what their life experiences and where they are feeling responsibility to continue working, so we cannot actually dictate to them when they should be working or not.
[00:23:56] However, going back to our previous conversation, if we're experiencing performance issues, then we need to name those. And if a position has shifted where we now require different skills, and we then want to go and recruit for those skills, we need to name that. So I would actually push back on this question to just ask, well, what is the actual issue that we're looking to address?
[00:24:20] Is it that we feel like we don't have the talent here, that we need to take us where we wanna go? Is it that we are trying to free up some, some bandwidth or some resources to allow us to do something else? Yeah. That way it, becomes easier for HR as a solution partner to then think through what our opportunities are.
[00:24:41] At the end of the day. You can always remind people about the opportunity to retire. Sure. but. One, your reminder of that is going to then set off some reaction. So you need to think through how prepared are you for that reaction. Sure. And two, it is their choice as an employee to decide what they want to do if there is not a performance issue, wrapped up in this.
[00:25:06] And so it's reminding people to just be patient about that, because people do get to tell us, if they want to keep working, if they are actually meeting the x. Their performance that we've set for them.
[00:25:19] Nicole Belyna: Sure. Yeah. I mean, again, it's just as you said earlier, you know, identifying the root cause, you know, why is this even a topic of conversation and you know.
[00:25:33] is it a performance issue that can be addressed through those ongoing coaching discussions? . You know, or is it, is it a skill, you know, deficit that's, you know, perhaps shifting as the organization changes. So those are things that you can certainly address in a very different way than, you know, suggesting that someone.
[00:25:55] Retire
[00:25:56] Isaac Agbeshie-Noye: For sure, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. There's some agency that we want people as good employees to take advantage of, and it is a demoralizing space to live in when that agency is taken from you. And so I try to remind people of that no one in a leadership position would want somebody to come and tell them, yeah, I think it's time for you to wrap it up.
[00:26:19] Yeah. and so, but sometimes in those positions, in those seats. You forget that. and so it's, there's a great opportunity to just remind people regarding what that experience is like.
[00:26:30] Nicole Belyna: Yeah. Well thanks for that, advice. we talked about earlier, you know, areas where there may be, You know, it, older workers, underrepresented perhaps in, in roles that require technology, you know, high usage of technology, evolving technology, things like that.
[00:26:53] But then there are, there is technology that's required in the workforce today. And so, and that's for everyone. And so how can HR handle tech training for employees who struggle or resist learning new tools?
[00:27:08] Isaac Agbeshie-Noye: Well, yeah, so I'll give you two answers because those are actually two different people. so we have all dealt with something where we have struggled to adapt it.
[00:27:20] People describe themselves when we talk about math people's. Talk about how they struggle with math, or they may struggle with certain types of communication skills, or they may struggle with public speaking. And so I think that we often forget what it is like to struggle, but also what opportunity there is for us to persist.
[00:27:40] So just because somebody struggling with it does not mean that they cannot get better at it. We just have to be more creative about creating a learning environment for them where they can grow. Deepen their skills over time. understanding that that type of progress is not linear. And so people will continue, they will come around over time as we all have with things that we struggle with now.
[00:28:07] Resisting learning tools. That is a flag. Sure. Because if those tools are particularly required to do a certain job and somebody's communicating to you that they will not do them well, then now we're going back to where we started with a performance issue. And so now we get to speak more tactically to what we can do to, to mitigate that.
[00:28:32] I think that. Part of what I encourage managers and HR professionals in particular to explore is to figure out where's the root of the resistance coming from. And so if it's coming from fear that ultimately the technology is gonna replace me or replace my job, which is a real thing for a lot of folks, then let's speak to that and let's figure out what assurances, if any, we can give someone to, to help kind of mitigate that fear.
[00:29:00] If the resistance is coming from, feeling like I'm in these high pressure situations where I'm asked to use these. Tools, but I don't have all the learning or the background in order to leverage them in ways that makes me feel comfortable. Great. We can do some things about that. We can create a learning plan that makes the most sense so that you're learning how to, you're socialized to the platform and then learning over time how to get faster and more, responsive to the needs of the business over time.
[00:29:32] And so I think that it is one, helpful to identify. Is this an employee who just is struggling with learning something new? Or is this an employee who decided they will not? And then from there we can kind of figure out a couple of approaches that make the most sense to bring people along on a learning, journey that hopefully then makes their performance even better.
[00:29:58] Nicole Belyna: Before we wrap up, let's take a quick look at a long-term strategy. So what do you see as the biggest opportunities and challenges for the same population in five to 10 years?
[00:30:11] Isaac Agbeshie-Noye: Yes, thanks for that question. So I'll start with the challenge and the, biggest challenge is that we are going to see jobs evolving quickly.
[00:30:21] And so as quickly as you identify something that you might be interested in, that job may shift or change in ways that you may not be prepared or ready for. And so the greatest opportunity that comes with that is that I am enc. We encourage our older workers to get really clear about. About understanding the skills that they're bringing to the table so that as we are encouraging more employers to transition to these skills first approaches where they're communicating exactly what they hope people will do in roles, it will be better to see yourself or easier for you to see yourself in those positions.
[00:30:59] If you have an. Standing internally about what your skills are, and if you are still trying to figure that out. Also just being a little curious about what types of things employers are doing to rapidly upskill their employees so that their employees can continue to contribute towards the business.
[00:31:18] And so that's where I feel like the biggest opportunities are is around the upskilling, reskilling and skill, recognition. Within the population. And that is going to come at just the right time because of the, I think, massive amount of change that will come to the ways that a lot of positions are structured currently.
[00:31:40] Nicole Belyna: Absolutely. Change is definitely not gonna slow down anytime soon or ever. Right. so I mean, it's good, advice for anyone in the workplace to upskill reskill, and, know your skills. Perfect. So that's gonna do it for this week's episode of Honest HR. A big thank you to you, Isaac, for sharing your deep insights with us, and we will see you next time.
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